By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, March 8
Last fall, the Kansas Health Policy Authority said it needed 42 additional staff members to do all it was expected to do.
Gov. Katherine Sebelius added 21 full-time positions in her proposed budget.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee has added 10 more to the governor”s recommendation, making it 31.
“We”ve asked the health authority to do a lot more than was originally anticipated,” said committee chairman Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer.
The additional 10 positions were part of the subcommittee”s recommendations approved Thursday by the full committee.
The 31 new positions are expected to cost $708,453 all funds; $193,676 from the State General Fund.
Though the committee”s endorsement of the subcommittee”s report was unanimous, Sens. Jim Barone, D-Frontenac, and Chris Steineger, D-Kansas City, raised several questions
some of them pointed
about the health policy authority”s needs and mission.
“I see us spending more and more on administration
that”s not the path we should be on,” Steineger said.
Steineger said he was hard-pressed to see how the health policy authority has done anything to reduce health-care costs.
“Simply spending more isn”t reform,” he said.
Barone called for a report on how much the health policy authority was expected to cost when it was first proposed, how much it”s costing now, and how much it”s likely to cost in the future.
“I think this is turning out to be much more expensive than anyone predicted,” he said.
Barone said he had been under the impression that much of the health policy authority”s staffing needs would be met by reducing the number of positions at the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.
Before last year, SRS administered the state”s Medicaid programs. Those duties moved to the health policy authority on July 1, 2006.
Umbarger assured Barone that SRS had lost positions in the transfer.
“But we”ve greatly enlarged the role of the health authority
it”s role is much greater than what SRS” was,” Umbarger said. “We”re asking them to do what we haven”t been able to do.”
The health policy authority, he said, is charged with crafting health policy for all Kansans
not just for the poor and disabled.
Sen. Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, told Barone that SRS had long lacked the resources to “stem the tide” of ever-increasing health care costs.
Launching the health policy authority was a giant step toward reform, said Morris, who”s also Senate president.
But Steineger compared the agency to “one of those gas guzzlers from the 1970s
we keep driving it because there”s nothing to stop us from putting gas in the tank.”
Bringing the debate to a close, Umbarger smiled and asked Steineger if he had a health care-reform bill ready for introduction.
Steineger chuckled. “I”m working on it,” he said.
The House Appropriations Committee has expressed support for the health policy authority but has indicated it will not take action until the end of the session.
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.