KHI NEWS SERVICE
TOPEKA, Sept. 27
The KHI News service inaccurately reported in a story posted on Sept. 25 that a meeting to be attended in Chicago by members of the Kansas Health Policy Authority”s Health for All Kansans Steering Committee was closed to the press and the public.
The meeting, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the State Coverage Initiatives administered by AcademyHealth, was an invitation-only meeting and was therefore not originally planned to be an open meeting. That was a problem for the Kansas delegation
which included members of the KHPA board and four legislators
because it was subject to the Kansas Open Meetings Act.
Enrique Martinez-Vidal, State Coverage Initiatives director, said following conversations with Marcia Nielsen, executive director of the KHPA, and others, meeting organizers decided to open the deliberations of the Kansas delegation.
“That seemed to alleviate the concerns all the way around,” Martinez-Vidal said.
The KHI News Service expressed an interest in covering the meeting and was invited to do so by both KHPA and meeting organizers. However, for reasons unrelated to the structure of the meeting a decision was made not to cover the event.
The KHI News Service regrets the error and retracts the portion of its Sept. 25 story that inaccurately described the meeting.
KHI has reconsidered its earlier decision and has had a reporter at the meeting since this morning.
The meeting is scheduled to last into Friday.
We look forward to providing our readers with coverage of this meeting.