Health at the Capitol – Episode 1: Moving Fast

Summary: 

The 2025 Kansas legislative session is in full swing, with lawmakers rapidly advancing health-related bills. In this episode of Health at the Capitol, host Theresa Freed and strategy team leader Linda Sheppard break down key topics, including the latest on Medicaid and how federal budget discussions may affect Kansas. Stay informed on the policies that impact health in Kansas and beyond. Tune in for expert analysis and insights into the evolving political landscape.

Full Transcript

Voice over 0:00
Each legislative session, KHI is hard at work keeping you informed on the latest health policy discussions from across the street, in downtown Topeka. Health at the Capitol is a KHI production, a monthly recap with our legislative monitoring team, offering you a closer look at policy work happening now in Kansas and coming up.

Theresa Freed 0:21
Thanks for joining us for Health at the Capitol. We are wrapping up the first month of the 2025 Legislative Session. My name is Theresa Freed. I’m the Director of Strategic Communication and Engagement for the Kansas Health Institute, also your host for today’s Health at the Capitol. And of course, I’m joined by Linda Sheppard. She is our Strategy Team Leader for State and Federal Health Policy. So always Linda, thanks for joining today.

Linda Sheppard 0:49
Thank you Theresa.

Theresa Freed 0:50
Alright, so it is off to a busy start at the Capitol building. And I know there are lots of different topics that are being addressed, lots of activity, so we will kind of dive right in. So what are some of the the topics that are being addressed related to health right now?

Linda Sheppard 1:10
Well, thank you, Theresa. Yes, the things are moving quickly this year, with the legislature making the decision to operate on really this kind of accelerated schedule for this year, things have been happening very quickly. So that’s, that’s been an exciting time for us to try to keep up with all the things that are going on. As far as current issues, a lot happening. For example, just within the last 24 hours, we’ve had a number of things occur. The, the Governor last week had vetoed Senate Bill 63 which is known as the Help, Not Harm Act, related to gender transition services. And so that, she did veto that on the 11th. But yesterday, the legislature overrode her veto on that, so that bill will go into effect upon a publication at the Kansas Register. And again, just really quickly, has a number of provisions in there that relate to prohibiting certain services that are being provided. Particularly this is for youth, and related to gender transition, so that bill will be going into effect as soon as it gets published in the register. The other thing that happened yesterday was that the legislature passed, the House passed their budget bill. So this is House Bill 2007, this is again, a change for this year. With having the house sort of kick things off and have a bill going right away that they worked on to get their budget put into place. And so that bill was passed yesterday, and it will now go to the Senate for consideration, and we’ll see what happens on the other side. But so usually the budgets are something that sort of happened at the end of the session, but the way that they’re doing it this year, things are moving much quicker. And they’re already kind of halfway there at this point. The other thing that happened yesterday also, was there were a couple of attempts to insert Medicaid expansion into a couple of bills that were being debated by both on the House side and the Senate side. So, you know, we had mentioned before that the governor had introduced a couple of bills, both on the House and the Senate side, related to Medicaid expansion. Neither of those specific bills have gotten a hearing, but there were attempts on the floor to insert Medicaid expansion into a couple of bills, one of those being the budget bill that I just mentioned. So House Bill 2007, that amendment didn’t pass. And then also there was an attempt to add it into what is known as Senate Bill 161. Senate Bill 161 is a bill that puts into place a requirement that any changes in public assistance programs, including Medicaid, would require legislative approval before that could be done by the agency, so any agency that was overseeing those programs. So that bill actually did pass, Senate Bill 161. Again, there was an attempt to add Medicaid expansion into that, and that amendment did not pass.

Theresa Freed 4:29
And I might interrupt just for a second so we can take a step back and talk a little bit about the timing of everything. I mean, this session is expedited. And can you talk about why that is, and what that means for the entire legislative process?

Linda Sheppard 4:47
So, yes, it is. They are as I sort of alluded to at the beginning, they are operating on this kind of expedited schedule. You know, I’ve been here at KHI for a little over 10 years, and we’ve been monitoring the activity of the legislature all that time. And historically, you know, the the legislature has not adjourned until really, very early in May. This year, the rules came out for the legislature that they are really shooting for trying to be done by April 12. So, you know, this is a good three weeks earlier than typically they’d been done in the past. You know, leadership had indicated that the Kansas Constitution does provide for a 90-day session. And you know, in the past, it’s been 90 days, but there have been breaks in there. And so they are, they pretty much eliminated all of those breaks, and are just moving straight through and really trying to stick to this 90-day schedule as as stated in the constitution. So it has just made things move much quicker. You know, one of the things that, that’s happening, tomorrow, Feb. 20 is a turnaround day. So that is the day that all the bills that started in one chamber have to be moved over to the other chamber in order to still be active, except for those bills that are in exempt committees. So again, that’s another thing that’s just happening really fast. So within the last couple of weeks, both chambers have been working really hard. The committees have been working really hard to get hearings done, get bills worked and passed out of committee, so they can go to the floor. And so it’s just been a really fast pace, unusual. They’re working very hard and getting a lot done in a much shorter time.

Theresa Freed 6:43
And we might talk a little bit about how KHI monitors the legislation. You know, we obviously keep, keep our eyes on things that are related to health, and we define health very broadly. But can you talk about how the KHI legislative monitoring team kind of divides and conquerors, and then, you know, pulls everything together for a weekly recap?

Linda Sheppard 7:05
Yeah, so our our legislative monitoring team, we split up all of the committees at the beginning of the session. We try to identify those committees that we think may be working on health-related bills throughout the session. And then just from day one, we start monitoring everything that they do. So we monitor the hearings that they hold, we monitor and track bills as they go through the process, pay attention to what’s happening when the legislators are on the floor and things that are getting done as they move through. And then every week, we try to pull all of that information together in a big summary to let our audience and our stakeholders know sort of what happened in health. And so that’s why we have Health at the Capitol, is our summary that we put out every week that tries to give you an idea of everything that’s been happening in all of the committees, across them, and we’re talking about 14+ committees that we end up monitoring, ultimately, that have done anything that’s related to health in any way. And so it runs the gamut. And you’re right. We do define health very, very broadly. So we also include things like child welfare in there, and juvenile justice, and then any bills that sort of impact any kind of thing that’s related to health in any way, including the way things are done in public health and, and a lot of other topics as well. So we cover a lot of material.

Theresa Freed 8:40
Alright. And I know a lot of organizations do something sort of similar, where they’re monitoring legislation. The unique thing about the Kansas Health Institute is we’re nonpartisan, nonadvocacy. So when people are receiving this information, they may use it for those sorts of purposes, but it’s coming out as kind of fact based. This is exactly what happened, sort of information that anybody can use, which is really nice.

Linda Sheppard 9:04
Yes, that’s exactly right. And that really is our goal. Our goal is to provide information to everybody, and it is very fact based. It is this is what the bill says. This is what the discussion was during the hearings. These are the kinds of questions that legislators asked, and we really do want people to have the information and then, however they choose to use that information, we think that’s great, and they can do that, but our goal is to put information out there that people can use.

Theresa Freed 9:36
Alright. And, you know, we made some slight adjustments with the naming of the strategy area that you’re focused on this year. So you know, given given all that’s happening at the federal level and in combination with the state level, we have that dual focus this year for sure. Can you talk a little bit about what the administration change at the federal level, what sort of the impacts does that have on politics or decision making here at the local level?

Linda Sheppard 10:04
Yeah, so, this year, KHI in our strategic plan, we renamed our strategy area. It’s still the same thing, but we just called it something different, because we really felt like we needed to make it more clear what our intent is. But it is now the State and Federal Health Policy strategy area that I’m responsible for. And we’ve always done this, but the goal really is to not only focus on what’s happening here at the state, and obviously the legislature being a big piece of that, but also paying very close attention with a new administration coming in this year at the federal level, and anything that is going on at the federal level, either in a regulatory way or certainly in a legislative way, through Congress, as well as any administrative orders that come from President Trump, that potentially impact what happens at the state. And that is very much true. So this is really a very, again, very fast paced time. We just have have had a new Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was confirmed. And we’ve got some indication of the things that he’s interested in, and what we might see coming down from the federal government that will flow to the states. There is a budget resolution that’s currently being worked by Congress, that would, at least at this point, certainly include some indication of some cuts to the Medicaid program. And again, that will come flow down to the state and then also President Trump had also issued an executive order referring to what is become known as MAHA, so it’s a Make America Healthy Again. There’s lots of comments in there about looking at things like nutrition and with a really very specific focus on the health of children. So I think we’ll see some things coming down from that as well. So you know, with just that very recent confirmation of the secretary for HHS, we expect to start seeing some things come out. And so it’s very important, I think, for us to monitor all of that activity as well, and then provide that information to our audience. So we’ll be doing that.

Theresa Freed 12:29
For sure, and bringing it back to the state level again. Do you want to talk a little bit about what’s to come? What are we expecting to hear debated or discussed?

Linda Sheppard 12:38
Yeah, so I obviously, as I mentioned, with House Bill 2007 being passed by the House, that will now flip over to the Senate side. And so they’ll be getting quickly into that hard work of going ahead and finishing up the budget. And again, there are a lot of bills that have now come from the House that are moving over to the Senate and vice versa. So they’ll all be dealing with all of the bills that came over from the other side that they now have to consider. So again, another very quick round of hearings and working those bills and then passing them out to their respective chambers as well.

Theresa Freed 13:18
Alright, sounds great. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up?

Linda Sheppard 13:22
No, I don’t think so, but thank you. Again, stay tuned. We have a lot of information coming out every single week, and as fast paced as it is, we’re doing our best to keep up with it, but there’s a lot going on and a lot for everybody to pay attention to, so we’re doing our best to keep you up to date.

Theresa Freed 13:44
Alright. Thanks so much, Linda. And as Linda mentioned, you can stay up to date by logging on to a computer, grabbing our web page, khi.org and signing up for our weekly emails. You’ll receive not just the weekly recap, but lots of other great information as well, and you can also continue to tune into our webcast. We’ll have this monthly summary of what’s happening at the Capitol.

Voice over 14:09
Thanks for joining us for Health at the Capitol. Sign up to receive our emails at khi.org to get a weekly recap of health policy activity during the Kansas Legislative Session. You’ll also receive our latest publications and information about upcoming events.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Health at the Capitol Production Team

Theresa Freed, M.A., Host, Producer, Editor

Stewart Cole, Editor, Production Designer

Mikell Burr, Graphic Designer

Karsen DeWeese, Intern, Production Assistant