By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Jan. 19
The House Appropriations Committee introduced a bill today that would require legislative approval of any partnerships between a state university hospital and other entities.
“Through the years Kansans have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the University of Kansas Medical Center and School of Medicine.
It troubles me the medical center has involved itself with plans that could take its assets across the state line without consulting the Kansas Legislature,” House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, said.
University of Kansas Hospital and the KU School of Medicine have been negotiating an affiliation agreement with St. Luke”s Hospital, which is in Kansas City. Mo.
“Kansas lawmakers are elected to make sure good public policy is enacted and that includes protecting the state”s assets.
We need to know the details of these negotiations to make sure this partnership is in the best interest of Kansas.
On the surface, it makes no sense to send Kansas health care dollars to Missouri,” Neufeld said.
He said House Bill 2134 would be assigned to a committee early next week.
Officials at the university hospital and KU had little to say about the bill on Friday.
“The University of Kansas Hospital has just received the proposed legislation and is reviewing it.
Other than that we have no comment,” said spokesman Dennis McCulloch.
The medical center, home to the KU School of Medicine, has been considering various affiliations with the major Kansas City metro hospitals as part of a broader push to make that city a national leader in bioscience research.
On Nov. 14, 2006, the University of Kansas Hospital, which is in Kansas City, Kan., made an almost $400 million affiliation offer to the medical school and center. But KU Medical Center leaders said the offer would limit the center”s ability to affiliate with other Kansas City hospitals and thereby hinder future fund raising needed to meet the goals of a broader Kansas City blueprint for higher education and bioscience development titled
“Time To Get It Right: A Strategy for Higher Education in Kansas City.”
A more recent follow-up to that report is titled: “Time To Get Things Done.”
Details of the University of Kansas Hospital offer, which would spread the money over 10 years, weren”t made public until Barbara Atkinson, the medical school”s dean, wrote a Nov. 27 letter to KU Medical Center staff outlining the proposal. Subsequent press accounts and editorial columns brought broader attention to the affiliation negotiations and raised questions among some legislators.
Last month, spokesmen for the medical center and the university hospital appeared before the interim Legislative Budget Committee and pledged the two institutions would work together to develop an affiliation agreement that would benefit their organizations, the state and the Kansas City bioscience initiative.
The Kansas Board of Regents and some legislators said they didn”t intend to “micromanage” the negotiations. But others, including Neufeld and Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Emporia, said the Legislature was obliged to watch carefully.
“I believe the state has a major responsibility in overseeing the process,” Barnett told KHI News Service in a December. “This relates to health-care manpower. A significant number of our primary care providers are trained at KU. We have a responsibility to the state of Kansas to protect and retain those training centers and training focus in our state.
“I”m also concerned about the influence of promises and large amounts of money directing policy for the people of Kansas. Through my six years in the Legislature, I understand too well the influence of money on politics that doesn”t necessarily translate to the best public policy for the people of Kansas.”
The University of Kansas Hospital is the bigger of the two operations once equally bound to the university and the state before the Legislature in 1998 created an independent authority to oversee the hospital. The Legislature”s involvement with the hospital authority has been minimal since then.
Mike Shields is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
mshields@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 123.