Healthcare
Missouri measure would enact ‘Right to Try’ drug program for dying patients
If you were dying and had exhausted all conventional treatment options, wouldn’t you want immediate access to a drug that might prove to be a miracle cure? That’s the promise of legislation that, if signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, would make Missouri the third state in the country – after Colorado and Louisiana – to…
Tax credits drop health insurance premiums for Missouri, Kansas consumers
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday outlined the savings, by state, accrued by by consumers through the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace for insurance policies. In Missouri, marketplace shoppers who selected silver plans — the most popular plan type– paid an average of $45 per month after tax credits. In Kansas,…
Area legislator: Missouri lawmakers nearly reached medicaid expansion deal
A last-minute deal to expand Medicaid in Missouri almost materialized in the waning days of this year’s legislative session, briefly breathing life into an issue that had seemed all but doomed. Missouri State Sen. Ryan Silvey, a Kansas City Republican, provided a behind-the-scenes look at high-level negotiations that occurred just before the session ended without an…
Retiring CEO reflects on his experiences at Truman Medical Centers
After only two weeks as the new CEO of Kansas City’s safety-net hospital system, John Bluford called an emergency 6:30 a.m. meeting of the Truman Medical Centers board. After assurances that he was not going to quit, Bluford told the board members, “I understood when I took this position that the system was broken. It’s…
Blunt cites KC shooting in call for VA reform
The weekend shooting death of a former Army paratrooper in Kansas City highlights deficiencies in the care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said during a visit to to Kansas City on Thursday. On Sunday, police shot 26-year-old Issac Sims after he emerged from his family’s home…