Brownback signs controversial health care compact bill

By Dave Ranney — KHI News Service TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback has signed into law a bill that might make it possible for Kansas to join a compact of states that want the power to run Medicare and Medicaid within their borders. The new law also creates the possibility that the compact states could circumvent…

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Closing of clinic elicits rainbow of emotions

The pale white walls and beige cloth desk chair pretty much sum up the decor of the medical director’s office at the Shared Care Free Clinic of Jackson County in Independence. Yet just inside the doorway, underneath a seat for visitors, sit two bundles of fluorescently colored socks. The director, Dr. Bridget McCandless, keeps the…

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Moveon.Org poll shows most Kansans support Medicaid expansion

But Brownback campaign skeptical of the results By Jim McLean KHI News Service April 8, 2014 TOPEKA — Poll results released today indicate that the Medicaid expansion issue could be a factor in the Kansas governor’s race. The poll, conducted last week for MoveOn.org Political Action, a left-leaning group dedicated to “progressive change,” showed that 52 percent…

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Medicaid expansion advocates rally at Statehouse

crowd at Kansas statehouse

By Jim McLean KHI News Service TOPEKA — Medicaid expansion is nowhere to be found on Gov. Sam Brownback’s list of priorities and those of Republican legislative leaders as they work through a legislative session now dominated by school finance issues. But that didn’t stop nearly 200 expansion supporters from crowding into a wing of the Statehouse…

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Missouri politicians hopeful of Medicaid expansion compromise

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver

Mike Sherry – The Hale Center for Journalism Missouri policy makers might be inching toward middle ground that would expand Medicaid eligibility while reforming the safety-net program to encourage recipients to work, two key participants in the talks said Monday. The comments came from Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and state Rep. Noel Torpey,…

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