By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, March 5
The Kansas House Republican Task Force on Health Care announced its big plan for the session, sort of.
There was a press conference Monday in the House Chamber with most members of the task force standing behind the speaker”s rostrum for sake of the cameras, but there were no bills ready for lobbyists or others to scrutinize. Reporters who came to hear about the plan were told to stay tuned in the days ahead for details.
“I hope this legislation will be a model and a road map for other states,” House Majority Leader Ray Merrick said, notwithstanding the fact there was no legislation yet.
House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, said the bill drafting was set back when Revisor Emeritus Norman Furse, of the Revisor of Statutes Office, suffered a heart attack.
“I don”t know if that”s why he had a heart attack, but he had a heart attack,” Neufeld said.
Furse is now home from the hospital recovering.
“At this point, I don’t know if it will be a bill or several bills,” said Revisor of Statutes Mary Torrence. “Some of it, I suspect, may be in an appropriations bill. Jim Wilson is coordinating it. Several people in the office have been working on different parts of it (already).”
Neufeld said he didn”t yet know which committee or committees would work the bills once they are ready to go.
Instead of details, Rep. Jeff Colyer, R-Overland Park, the task force chairman, described concepts underlying the plan, which Neufeld said would begin showing up in bill form over the next several days.
Colyer said the Kansas health care system is a “wobbly three-legged stool” and that the House GOP plan would make it a table “with four sturdy legs.” The Republicans called their four-legged plan “KanCare for a Healthy Kansas.”
Leg One, Colyer said, would be to make commercial insurance more affordable through “Section 125 plans,” which exempt money paid for health insurance premiums from income taxes.
Colyer said the House GOP plan also would encourage more insurers and coverage plans to get into the market thereby holding down costs through competition. The plan also would include help for small business association plans.
Leg Two: Would include a new program called KanInsure, which would use dollars freed through federal Medicaid waivers to “transition” those on Medicaid or currently uninsured into “the private market.”
Leg Three: Would use federal waivers and flexibilities allowed under the federal Deficit Reduction Act to convert the state”s Medicaid program into what they”re calling a “new MediKan” program, which, among other things, would aim to stop waste and fraud, help seniors get more home health care instead of in nursing homes and promote “wellness initiatives.” This leg also would rely on “consumer driven” health plans and “Health Opportunity Accounts,” which would allow Medicaid recipients to create accounts similar to private market Health Savings Accounts.
Leg Four: “Would strengthen free-care clinics and create incentives for providers to give more free care.” Create a trust fund with money from any “one-time windfalls like tobacco settlement money” to go into a private foundation, which also would have a portion of insurance premium taxes dedicated to it. Leg Four also would include an “insurance exchange” different from the one spelled out in Senate Bill 309, which is still in a Senate committee being worked. The House GOP version “is based on the New York Stock Exchange.”
“KanCare creates an insurance exchange that would exist in the private sector without regulatory power and without supplanting brokers and insurers,” the Republicans said in a prepared statement. “It includes all insurers and all plans in the state the whole market. It would facilitate transactions like pooling payments to subsidize health premiums, give choices to uninsured and Medicaid recipients, share data and simplify insurance card processing.”
Lobbyists and analysts reserved comment on the plan, waiting to see particulars.
“The devil is always in the details,” said one insurance company lobbyist.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and House Democrats said they were pleased Republicans were interested in doing something this session.
“I was encouraged to see that the Republicans have adopted our idea of providing seed money for small businesses to form association plans, as outlined in the Small Business Association Assistance Plan (HB 2328) earlier this session,” House Democratic Leader Dennis McKinney of Greensburg said in a prepared statement. “It is disappointing, however, that there was no discussion of the Governor”s proposal to expand health insurance to all Kansas children from birth to age five.”
The governor also called for the Republicans to embrace her so-called HealthyFive proposal, though Neufeld said the GOP plan would include “no Medicaid expansion.”
“The fact that ideas are coming forward on how we can expand affordable coverage is a step in the right direction,” Sebelius said in a prepared statement. “There”s a widespread understanding that action is needed soon, and that coverage for all Kansans is a shared responsibility between businesses, individuals and government.
There”s also an agreement that we can use existing dollars to insure more Kansans and that the Health Policy Authority should take the lead, carefully reviewing proposals so that we don”t end up with any unintended consequences, such as loss of health insurance by some.”
-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.