Featured Columns
| Commentary
For many generations, Kansans were governed by experienced, educated and thoughtful people who realized the great difference that government had made in their lives. The people elected to office had known lives before a time of new and noble purpose. They had come through a civil war, a panic, a great depression and two world wars. They saw the need for a government. It could not go away.
| Commentary
Shortly after the ACA was enacted, there was a great deal of talk about how states could leverage their joint purchasing power in an expanded Medicaid program and a robust health insurance exchange to drive improvements in health care delivery, yielding better value. Somehow this notion has been lost in the intervening years — it's time to restart the conversation.
| Commentary
In five months, the world of health insurance in Kansas will change. For some of you, that will be maddening. For other Kansans, it will be welcome relief. They have suffered through the worries of being uninsured during the past recession years, and they will now have a method of providing insured health care for themselves and their families.
| May. 18, 2013 | Commentary
Over the five decades leading to a new millennium, state government in Kansas had assumed a rhythm of reform and advancement. Today it thrums with the drone of demolition.
| May. 17, 2013 | Commentary
The 1980s and 1990s were the last decades of significant and compelling reform in Kansas. The legislative agenda seemed dominated by Democrat Gov. John Carlin but he could not have seen through reforms without help from Republicans and their leaders.
| May. 16, 2013 | Commentary
For many generations, Kansans were governed by experienced, educated and thoughtful people who realized the great difference that government had made in their lives. The people elected to office had known lives before a time of new and noble purpose. They had come through a civil war, a panic, a great depression and two world wars. They saw the need for a government. It could not go away.
| May. 07, 2013 | Commentary
Shortly after the ACA was enacted, there was a great deal of talk about how states could leverage their joint purchasing power in an expanded Medicaid program and a robust health insurance exchange to drive improvements in health care delivery, yielding better value. Somehow this notion has been lost in the intervening years — it's time to restart the conversation.
| May. 01, 2013 | Commentary
In five months, the world of health insurance in Kansas will change. For some of you, that will be maddening. For other Kansans, it will be welcome relief. They have suffered through the worries of being uninsured during the past recession years, and they will now have a method of providing insured health care for themselves and their families.
| Apr. 23, 2013 | Commentary
Unlike you, Senator Baucus, the American people have opposed this law from the moment it was first introduced in Congress. How hard was it to see that even the smartest government bureaucrats can’t competently plan something as complicated as America’s health-care sector?
| Apr. 19, 2013 | Commentary
Oral health care is of critical importance for all Kansans, and we believe one of the keys is ensuring people have a way to pay for dental services. A ray of hope emerged when the state of Kansas selected KanCare contractors that offer a preventive dental benefit for the poorest adults in Kansas.
| Apr. 15, 2013 | Commentary
How much competition do we need in exchanges? The right answer isn't always or simply "more" even if it is "more than we have now." The story, as always, is more complex than that.
| Apr. 08, 2013 | Commentary
That continues to be the big question as the Obama administration continues its top secret effort to build federal insurance exchanges in about 34 states while 16 states are doing it on their own. The lack of transparency has the health insurance industry very worried.
| Apr. 04, 2013 | Commentary
There is a frightening figure in a recent article in Health Affairs — a map depicts a shocking pattern of female hardship, primarily in the southeast and midwest. In southern states, just about every county showed worsening female mortality; while no county showed such decline in New England.
| Apr. 02, 2013 | Commentary
As additional states consider adopting Arkansas' proposed approach of placing its Medicaid expansion enrollees into the state's health insurance exchange, I started wondering where this all leads. Can we blend two very different types of market forces? Which providers will participate in an exchange that also includes Medicaid enrollees? Who needs the states anyway?
| Apr. 01, 2013 | Commentary
Those receiving the earned income tax credit are usually younger working families who are not homeowners. My experience says that these working parents are most often working full time in jobs that pay $20,000 to $35,000 a year. Typically these are not jobs that pay mileage or have expense accounts. The $300 refundable credit allows these parents to make car repairs or get new tires, pay off credit cards and medical bills, and buy their children new shoes.
