Month: September 2016

Public community forum planned Sept. 20

The Mayor’s Clergy Roundtable will hold a public community forum at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 20, at Kansas City Kansas Community College TEC Center, 6565 State Ave., Kansas City, Kan.

The discussion will be about how the community and law enforcement can work together to make Kansas City, Kan., a safer and healthier place to live, Mayor Mark Holland said at the Unified Government Commission meeting on Thursday.

The community forum is open to the public, and the public is invited to share their thoughts.

Praeger says problems driving insurance companies from ACA marketplace are fixable

Former Kansas insurance commissioner says repeal of health reform law unrealistic option

by Jim McLean, KHI News Service

Former Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger says members of Congress should set aside partisan differences and fix problems with the Affordable Care Act.

Failing to do so, she warned, could hasten consideration of a single-payer system.

Praeger, a Republican who crossed party lines while in office to support the ACA, says the problems that are causing some insurance companies to pull out of the online health insurance marketplace are fixable.

“There are some things that could be done if we could get Congress to be willing to come to the table to try to solve problems,” Praeger said during a luncheon speech Wednesday at the Topeka YWCA. “That really hasn’t been the case now for a few years. But they could fix it.”

Three in Kansas marketplace

Some of the nation’s largest health insurance companies have withdrawn from the ACA marketplace, including UnitedHealthcare, Anthem and most recently Aetna. In addition, many of the companies staying in the marketplace are limiting their offerings to plans that are more restrictive than many offered on the open market.

In Kansas, only three companies are offering plans in the marketplace for 2017. Medica, a nonprofit company based in Minnesota, agreed to join when United withdrew. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City remain but have requested large premium increases.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, which operates in 103 of the state’s 105 counties, has requested a 47.4 percent rate increase. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, which operates in Johnson and Wyandotte counties, has requested an increase of 28.1 percent.

Current Kansas Insurance Commissioner Ken Selzer is expected to make rate-setting decisions next week.

Coventry Health and Life, an Aetna subsidiary, withdrew in August after initially indicating it would participate but sell only exclusive provider organization, or EPO, plans, which pay only for in-network care.

Four companies are expected to offer plans in Missouri: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, Cigna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (Healthy Alliance Life) and Humana. They are proposing rate increases ranging from Cigna’s 9 percent to Humana’s 34.9 percent.

Approximately 90,000 Kansans and 252,000 Missourians have marketplace plans, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Pressure for single-payer?

Insurance companies are withdrawing from the ACA marketplace because they’re losing money, Praeger said. In part, that is because a high percentage of the people purchasing marketplace plans are older and sicker than anticipated. She said too many younger, healthier people are choosing to pay tax penalties rather than buy insurance.

“The companies are saying, ‘Wait a minute. If only the older, sicker group is buying in and the younger, healthier group isn’t, we can’t do this anymore,’” Praeger said.

Congress could help solve that problem by increasing the penalties for not purchasing insurance and allowing companies to charge young consumers significantly less, she said.

Elected officials who ignore the problems and continue to advocate for repeal of the health reform law aren’t being realistic, Praeger said.

“The notion that somehow we would repeal this and go back to a system where people could be denied coverage based on their health conditions, or their age, or their sex, I just can’t imagine that could possibly happen,” she said.

What is more likely, she said, is that pressure will build for converting to a government-run single-payer system.

That is also the prediction of former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who served in President Bill Clinton’s Cabinet.

In a recent opinion piece published in several newspapers across the country, Reich said while “Obamacare can be patched” by increasing subsidies and forcing more healthy Americans to buy insurance, those would be “Band-Aids,” not long-term solutions.

He said the “real choice” is whether to continue propping up an unnecessarily expensive system run by insurance companies, in which sick people will find it increasingly difficult to get affordable coverage, or transitioning to a government-run single-payer system “dedicated to lower premiums and better care for everyone.”

“We’re going to have to choose eventually,” he wrote.

However, Republicans in Congress continue to call for repeal of the ACA as a part of their recently announced “Better Way” agenda.

Kansas 2nd District Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins said the GOP plan is a set of common-sense proposals to “get the government out of the way by implementing practical solutions to real problems.”

The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.

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UG Land Bank tries different tactics to expedite transfer of tax delinquent property

The Unified Government Land Bank board on Thursday night approved a couple of items using new procedures, according to UG officials.

Chris Slaughter, UG Land Bank manager, described the new process at Monday night’s UG standing committee meeting.

He said a tax foreclosure transfer was used on a property at 1038 Walker Ave. in Kansas City, Kan. The property had been delinquent since 2009 and the house has been razed. The property owes a total $11,200, from back taxes and expenses from the work done there.

When it was placed in the tax sale in May of 2013, no one bid on it, he said.

To expedite its transfer, the UG transferred the property to the Land Bank, he said. Rising Star Baptist Church, next to the property site, wants the land for a parking lot and community events, according to UG documents. The church had maintained and mowed the property for the past two years, according to documents.

A UG legal staff member, Wendy Green, said at the Monday meeting she believed the property could be transferred because there was a valid tax foreclosure judgment on the property. She said state statutes indicated that if a property goes through a tax sale and did not sell, at any time afterward the county could transfer the property to a third party, or transfer it in any way, as long as people were provided notice. The tax foreclosure judgment was valid for five years. Service was not required again because it was already done during the tax foreclosure judgment process, she said.

She said a notice was filed with the court for a hearing, and no one opposed it at the hearing. Then an order was signed by a judge transferring the property to the Unified Government, so it could be transferred to the Land Bank.

“I don’t think this has been done by the county before, but I think it could be a useful tool in transferring properties out that had already been through a sale but nobody purchased,” Green said.

She said another property transfer is coming up, set for a hearing in October, with the same process, and the UG may be able to transfer additional properties this way.

Commissioner Brian McKiernan at the standing committee meeting said in previous years, the UG had a policy similar to “catch and release,” where the property was put in the tax sale, no one bid on it, and it was just left there. This new procedure allows the UG to take action faster, according to McKiernan.

Slaughter said it is correct that this is not going to be a routine action by the UG. The staff will need to look at the properties to see if it is worth doing by the UG, he said. There may be some properties that the UG doesn’t want to touch until they can be held and then demolished, he said.

Another new procedure for the Land Bank this week was a contract sale, Slaughter said.

The property at 1101 S. 5th St., the old Hitching Post building, had been through tax sales in 2014, 2015 and 2016, with no bids at the tax sale. The taxes owed on the building were $687,167.55, he said.

The K&W Land Co. wants to purchase the property, according to UG documents.

Slaughter said a contract with the Land Bank calls for a purchase price of $20,000, the property must be demolished within one year of transfer or there is a $200,000 penalty, and future development is planned. He said the cost of the demolition could be more than $600,000.

Bill Wilhite of Prime Investments and K&W Land Co. said at the meeting that the company owns a lot of land in the area, and that this building on South 5th was being torn apart by vagrants, with doors open, and was hazardous and dangerous.

“Our intent would be to develop and put a building on it, similar to the type we built in that area, industrial,” he said. He said he expected the cost of the project to be more than $600,000.

Commissioners attending the meeting thanked him for doing the work.