By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, April 25
The so-called “mega-health” bill passed the House and Senate on Wednesday without a single opposing vote in either chamber.
House substitute for Senate Bill 11 now goes to the governor for signature into law. Rolled into it during
earlier conference committee deliberations
were a number of other health-related bills, making it the single most significant piece of health legislation enacted this year in Kansas.
The House approved the conference committee report on the bill, 122-0. The Senate endorsed it 38-0.
“There”s something in it for everyone. It”s a fantastic piece of legislation,” Sen. Vicki Schmidt, R-Topeka, said during the Senate discussion.
The bill included everything from a loan guarantee program for expansion of the state”s safety-net health clinics to modified licensing requirements for nursing home administrators. But its key provisions set the stage for major health reforms perhaps next year.
It also included approval for the Kansas Health Policy Authority to begin a premium assistance program allowing adult Kansans living at 50 percent or less of
federal poverty guidelines
to qualify for state help buying health insurance. If future Legislatures continue to support the assistance plan, all Kansans earning 100 percent or less of poverty level would qualify for the health insurance aid by year four of the program. Currently only adults earning 37 percent or less of poverty are eligible for Medicaid in Kansas, which is one of the strictest standards in the nation.
Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Emporia, one of the bill”s chief architects, said it was important mostly for what it might bring in the future. The bill did not include his plan unveiled at the beginning of the session for a health insurance exchange similar in some ways to the health insurance reform enacted in Massachusetts and often called the Commonwealth Connector. But
SB 11
did contain a provision instructing the Kansas Health Policy Authority to study the feasibility of a connector or exchange among possible reforms for consideration by next year”s Legislature.
“I”m extremely pleased to see a unanimous vote in both houses,” Barnett said. “I think that shows the Legislature is strongly interested and that there is bipartisan support for major health care reform. The high water mark in the bill for this year is the premium assistance, which will insure 8,500 more Kansans in its first year and many more when the program unfolds,” he said. “But the bill also sets the bar high for the Kansas Health Policy Authority, the governor and the Legislature to deliver on a significant level of health care reform next year.”
The bill, which has been titled The Foundations of Health Reform Act of 2007, instructs the health policy authority to develop a plan for sweeping health care reforms to be delivered in November for consideration by the 2008 Legislature. The agency has already appointed advisory councils to help it develop the plan and they have held early organizational meetings.
Though the bill does relatively little unless lawmakers approve funding next year for the first year of actually enrolling people into the premium assistance program, key legislators and the health policy authority hailed SB 11″s passage as a major step.
“This legislation represents the most important health care reform in Kansas in a generation,” House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, said in a prepared statement. “Much of the legislation is based on KanCare, a plan put together by the House Republican Health Care Task Force.
This reform will improve our state”s health care system and insure all Kansans receive the best care available, no matter what their financial status.”
“Health reform in Kansas is a monumental undertaking, and we have a lot more work to do,” said Marcia Nielsen, executive director of the Kansas Health Policy Authority. “Health reform will require thoughtful analysis, rigorous debate and political courage as we move into the next legislative session. I encourage Kansans to share their ideas with their legislators and the authority as we develop reform plans over the summer and into the fall. We need their support and input.”
Among its many provisions, SB 11 also gives new authority to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to use confidential data in the cancer registry for research and establishes the Umbilical Cord Donation Information Act.
It also amends laws governing the practice of physical therapy and expands newborn screening. It also creates an inspector general”s office within the health policy authority to ferret out fraud, mistakes and inefficiency in Medicaid, which is administered by the agency.
-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.