TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Teachers no longer would be exempt from criminal charges for showing students materials deemed to be harmful to minors under a bill passed by the Kansas Senate.

The Senate’s vote Wednesday was 26-14.

Teachers could be charged for any materials thought to be too sexual or too profane for minors under the proposal. Critics say it could cover sex education materials and even some classical literature and would have a chilling effect on educators wary of treading too close to the line.

Supporters say the bill would protect children and that teachers should not be allowed to show materials that would draw penalties in other contexts. They also said the fears of opponents are overblown.

The bill moves to the House for debate.

JOHN HANNA, Associated Press
ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A suburban lawmaker’s proposal that would dramatically increase property taxes on Kansas agricultural land has spawned a strong rural backlash.

Farmers also fear that pieces of it will pop up in legislation to close a projected state budget shortfall.

Republican Sen. Jeff Melcher of Leawood argues that agricultural land is valued for tax purposes so far below market values that it’s unfair.

He also contends the state and local communities are losing millions of dollars they could use to finance public schools and services.

But farmers and agriculture groups see huge potential tax increases.

The Kansas Department of Revenue estimates the annual state and local property taxes on agricultural land would increase by $890 million. Owners would see an average statewide per-acre increase of 569 percent on irrigated land.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Officials say a United Airlines flight has landed safely after being diverted to a Wichita airport because of landing gear issues.

Airport Police and Fire Capt. Randy Currie says the plane that took off Wednesday night from Denver International Airport had experienced landing gear issues, prompting a request to land at Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport.

The Bombardier Q-400 aircraft was operated by Republic Airlines and was headed to the Kansas City International Airport in Missouri.

A Republic Airlines representative says 67 passengers and a four-member crew were onboard Flight 4912. He says a maintenance crew is investigating the issue.

Currie says United Airlines offered to put the passengers in a hotel overnight. He also says the airline service used two buses to shuttle about 30 passengers to Kansas City.

By JIM MCLEAN
Legislation to allow Kansas dental hygienists with advanced training to provide a broader range of services isn’t likely to survive approaching deadlines that restrict the number of bills lawmakers can consider during the remainder of their session.

Because they are non-budget bills that haven’t advanced in either legislative chamber, the bills authorizing the licensing of registered dental practitioners (RDPs) likely will be set aside for the remainder of the session.

It’s happened before. Advocates have introduced RDP bills every year since 2011 in Kansas only to have them shelved by lawmakers, usually without a hearing.

This year is different in only one respect: The chairpersons of the House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over health issues said they didn’t intend to “work” the RDP bills — Senate Bill 49 and House Bill 2079 — but agreed to have hearings on them this week.

Determined to make the most of their face time with the committees, advocates structured their testimony to showcase the broad nature of their coalition. They brought in the dean of the University of Minnesota Dental School and officials from Wichita State University and Fort Hays State University to testify along with the CEOs of two Kansas health foundations.

And they emphasized that the RDP bills had the support of Americans for Prosperity – Kansas, the free-market advocacy group backed by the Koch brothers that is especially influential with the conservative Republicans who control both houses of the Legislature.

Rodger Woods, deputy director of AFP – Kansas, told members of the House Health and Human Services Committee that licensing RDPs — also known as dental therapists — would help expand access to dental services in underserved areas of the state.

“There is far more demand than supply for oral health services (in Kansas),” Woods said, noting that 95 of the state’s 105 counties have a shortage of dental providers.

He praised the Kansas Dental Association for sponsoring the Mission of Mercy program that once a year provides charity care to large numbers of Kansans in desperate need of dental services. But he said, “From my perspective, it’s more like what we do in Third World countries.”

Woods added: “I think we need to address the issues beyond providing free care once a year. We need a dental workforce in this state just as willing to see a Medicaid or uninsured patient as they are someone with private insurance.”

Representatives of the Kansas Dental Association said creating a new kind of dental provider isn’t the way to address the state’s access problems. Kevin Robertson, KDA’s director, said various initiatives are increasing the number of dentists in Kansas and the number practicing in rural and underserved areas. He said allowing hygienists with advanced training to fill cavities, pull teeth and do restorative work that now only dentists can do would jeopardize the safety of patients.

“Kansas has made great progress in improving access to quality dental services throughout Kansas, and we will continue to work with our partners and the Legislature to develop additional strategies,” Robertson said in his written testimony to the House committee. “This is a complex issue that does not have a simple one-size-fits-all solution.”

Daniel Minnis, a Pittsburg dentist who has broken ranks with his KDA colleagues, countered the association’s safety concerns.

“Your decision on this legislation should be made on facts and not emotions,” Minnis told members of the House committee.

And the facts, he said, are that RDPs receive more intensive training than dentists do on the limited number of procedures the bills would allow them to perform. In addition, he said, thousands of studies have been done on patient safety.

“And they all show the same thing,” Minnis said. “The mid-level provider is safe.”

Minnis urged lawmakers to ask the opponents for “one piece of factual evidence” to support their claims that RDPs would endanger patients.

Rep. John Wilson, a Lawrence Democrat, complied, asking the KDA’s Robertson if he “could provide evidence” of harm.

Robertson said he couldn’t point to specific research.

“There is not a study, so to speak,” he said.

Even so, he said, dentists believe the Kansas bills would allow RDPs to do more complicated procedures than supporters are suggesting.

“I think they (dentists) believe very strongly that there would be health consequences,” he said.

The debate over this year’s RDP bills may be over. But the debate on the issue isn’t. Supporters say they will continue to press their case next year and beyond with help from national groups backing similar efforts in other states.

And Robertson said the KDA, with help from the American Dental Association, will continue its opposition.

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

JIM SUHR, Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Big 12 Conference Commissioner Bob Bowlsby is publicly reprimanding Kansas State for failing to prevent Wildcats fans from pouring onto the court after the school’s upset victory over rival Kansas.

Bowlsby’s admonition Wednesday came the same day Kansas State student Nathan Power was publicly identified as the fan who body-checked Kansas forward Jamari Traylor after the Wildcats’ 70-63 victory Monday night.

Power has been cited for disorderly conduct and didn’t return messages Wednesday seeking comment.

No injuries resulted from the court-storming. But Bowlsby says Kansas State failed to ensure the safety and security of the players and fans. Calling what happened “a call to action,” he pressed for policy revisions to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, issued the following statement today ahead of Thursday’s scheduled vote on new Internet regulations proposed by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler:

“The most troubling fact about the FCC’s unprecedented expansion of regulatory authority is the profound lack of transparency. The FCC has never made the 332 pages of new rules public and now we have learned at least one Commissioner has requested an eleventh-hour change to the proposal. Congress and the American people deserve to know what the rules entail. A recent survey showed that 85 percent of Americans believe the FCC should either delay the vote until the full plan is made public or oppose any new regulations. On an issue of such importance to American consumers, the economy, and the future of the Internet this is unacceptable.

“Congress stands ready to work with the Administration on crafting commonsense net neutrality legislation, but the President is pushing the FCC to move forward. We know all too well how damaging the ‘we have to pass it so you can find out what is in it’ approach can be. By choosing this path, the FCC will leave Congress with no choice but to consider all options to scrutinize these rules. Just as the FCC believes Internet service providers should be held accountable for their network management practices, I believe the FCC should be held accountable for its potential interference in an Internet marketplace that has served Americans so

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has rejected a bill to give the state’s Medicaid program more control over costly mental health drugs.

The vote Wednesday was 25-15 against the bill. Senators who opposed it said they are concerned about mentally ill participants in the Medicaid program not getting the drugs they need. Medicaid provides health care for the needy and disabled.

The bill would repeal a 2002 law that prohibits Medicaid from controlling prescriptions of mental health drugs with preferred drug lists, prior authorization requirements or other methods.

Supporters of the bill said it would protect mentally ill participants from being over-medicated with drugs that can have dangerous side effects.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration was pushing the measure because it believes the state could save $16 million a year on drugs.

By Dan Margolies

Gallup is out with a new poll showing falling uninsured rates in every state but one: Kansas. Although not statistically significant, the Sunflower State’s 1.9 point increase makes it the only state in the country to witness an uptick. In 2013, 12.5 percent of the state’s residents lacked health insurance; in 2014, that percentage had risen to 14.4 percent, according to the

Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index results released Tuesday. Kansas is one of more than 30 states that opted not to set up its own state exchange, or health insurance marketplace, under Obamacare. And it’s one of 22 states that have declined to expand Medicaid.

As Gallup notes, of the 11 states with the greatest reductions, 10 both expanded Medicaid and set up a state-based exchange.

Only Montana, tied for 10th, did not. Missouri, which also did not establish its own exchange or expand Medicaid, saw its uninsured rate drop from 15.2 percent to 13.4 percent, a 1.8 point drop, according to Gallup. Some Kansas officials were skeptical back in August when the last Gallup results were released.

Those results showed the adult uninsured rate in Kansas had risen by 5.1 percentage points in mid-2014. They noted that while Kansas didn’t expand Medicaid eligibility, enrollment had increased because of the so-called woodwork effect – previously eligible people signing up as a result of the publicity about getting health insurance.

Linda Sheppard, a senior policy analyst at the Kansas Health Institute in Topeka and a former director of health care policy at the Kansas Insurance Department, is among those who remain skeptical of the latest results. The Kansas Health Institute is the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service, one of Heartland Health Monitor’s reporting partners.

“We had new people in the marketplace, several thousand people were added to the Medicaid rolls, and we knew that the (insurance) companies had been allowed to maintain those transitional plans in place and a large number of people kept those plans,” she says.

She allows, however, that the uninsured rate in Kansas could have gone up, noting that there are no data on people who have dropped coverage. “If this is happening for economic reasons because there are, for example, small employers who have discontinued offering their employees coverage, certainly there would definitely be people who lost coverage,” Sheppard says.

“And maybe at the time that these (Gallup) phone calls were made, they had not gotten a new job or had missed the opportunity to go onto the marketplace or had chosen not to do that.” While the decrease in Missouri’s uninsured rate was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent, Missouri Hospital Association spokesman David Dillon attributed the drop squarely to Obamacare. “

Last year we saw over 150,000 Missourians get coverage through the federal marketplace. This year the number is anticipated to be 250,000. That is a big chunk of the uninsured in this area,” he says.

“There were between 800,000 and 900,000 uninsured (in Missouri) before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, and now we’re seeing the marketplace as an effective tool in helping subsidize lower income people who haven’t been able historically to afford to buy insurance themselves, or who were ineligible for Medicaid because Missouri’s rate for Medicaid is very low.”

In Missouri, Medicaid eligibility for the non-disabled is limited to non-elderly adults with dependent children whose incomes don’t exceed 19 percent of the federal poverty level.

In Kansas, Medicaid eligibility is limited to non-elderly adults with dependent children who make no more than 32 percent of the federal poverty level, annually $7,770 for a family of four. About 300,000 low-income Missourians would gain coverage ifMedicaid eligibility were expanded to 138 percent of the poverty level, as envisioned under Obamacare.

In Kansas, expansion would extend coverage to an estimated 151,000 people. Gallup notes that states that chose to expand Medicaid and establish their own exchanges witnessed significantly greater drops in their uninsured rates than states that did neither.

Nationwide, the uninsured rate fell 3.5 points, to 13.8 percent from 17.3 percent, between 2013 and 2014, Gallup says – the lowest point in seven years. Reducing the number of people without health insurance was one of the chief aims of the Affordable Care Act – and by that yardstick, despite its continuing unpopularity as measured by polls, it appears to be succeeding. Arkansas and Kentucky recorded the biggest drops, according to Gallup – 11.1 points and 9.8 points, respectively.

And for the seventh straight year, Texas had the highest uninsured rate at 24.4 percent. That’s actually lower than the 27 percent it had in 2013 and the lowest rate to date for Texas, according to Gallup. The Gallup results were based on phone interviews with a random sample of 178,072 adults in 2013 and 176,702 adults in 2014.

 

Dan Margolies is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.