Month: March 2017

KCKCC softball splits at Cottey College

by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC

Stung by a frustrating 6-5 loss in the first game, Kansas City Kansas Community College rebounded with a 10-2 nightcap win that took just five innings at Cottey College in Nevada, Mo., Wednesday.

The split sends the Blue Devils (10-8) into a pair of home weekend doubleheaders. A doubleheader with Independence is scheduled at noon Saturday. A doubleheader with Cowley College is scheduled at 1 p.m. Sunday.

The Blue Devils pounded out 15 hits in both games at Cottey only to have three errors open the door for five unearned runs in the 6-5 opening loss. They also left nine runners stranded but took no such chances in the nightcap by scoring seven runs in the fifth inning of the 10-2 win.

“Much better effort in the second game,” KCKCC coach Kacy Tillery said. “We pitched well, played defense and hit well.”

Allison Kasick, a freshman from Basehor-Linwood, continued her torrid hitting, pounding out six hits and driving in seven runs in the two games. Kasick rapped her fifth home run of the season and singled in the opener and then drove in five runs in the second game with two doubles and two singles.

KCKCC led just 3-1 in the second game before the 7-run fifth inning highlighted by eight hits including six in a row. Singles by Kasick and Mikaela Hoffart started the inning and after two outs, Candice Jennings doubled and Sam Sudac, Grace Grosvenor, Kaylynn Stratton and LaTisha Thomas all singled before Kasick closed out the inning with a 3-run double.

The Blue Devils took a 1-0 lead in the first on singles by Stratton and Kasick and a home run by Jennings triggered a 2-run second inning that also included doubles by Sudac and Stratton, each of whom had three hits in the contest. Shannon Green went the 5-inning distance for the win, allowing four hits, striking out four and walking two.

Sophomore pitcher Megan Sumonja had a home run and two singles in the opener but took the loss despite giving up only one earned run. She struck out seven and walked seven. The Blue Devils, meanwhile, had runners on base in every inning but stranded nine.

Cottey never trailed in the opener, scoring two runs in each of the first two innings and taking a 6-3 lead with two more runs in the fourth. KCKCC closed to 6-5 in the fifth on Kasick’s home run following a single by Thomas.

Sumonja’s home run cut KCKCC’s deficit to 2-1 in the second and the Blue Devils got two more runs in the third on bases-loaded singles by Amy-Grace Wilson and Stringer. The Blue Devils’ 15-hit attack included two hits each by Stratton, Kasick, Wilson, Stringer and Taylor Hall and three by Sumonja.

KanCare expansion bill heads to Senate for vote next week

by Jim McLean, Kansas News Service

Kansas lawmakers are now a step away from what could be a showdown with Republican Gov. Sam Brownback on the political football issue of Medicaid expansion.

The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee on Thursday advanced an expansion bill to the full Senate for a vote supporters say will take place Monday.

“Hallelujah,” said Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, immediately after the committee approved the bill on a voice vote with little debate.

“We finally have enough compassionate, considerate, thoughtful legislators to have had this discussion and to pass this bill out of committee,” Kelly said, referring to legislative leaders elected after the recent defeat of several conservative incumbents by moderate Republicans and Democrats.

Sen. Jake LaTurner, a Pittsburg Republican, voted against advancing the bill, insisting that Kansas lawmakers should wait on the outcome of a Thursday vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a GOP bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. Among other things, the federal bill would prohibit states that haven’t already acted from expanding their Medicaid programs.

Since 2013, 31 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid eligibility. Kansas and Missouri are among 19 that have not.

“I think Washington is going the opposite direction,” LaTurner said. “They’re going to the right and we’re going to the left it seems. This is an enormous entitlement. We’re writing checks that we can’t cash.”

Several members of the committee disagreed, including Kelly.

“We don’t know what the end result in D.C. is going to be,” she said. “So, I think we’re better to play offense here and get Medicaid expanded in the state and then deal with whatever comes down from D.C.”

Expanding eligibility for KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, would provide health insurance to an additional 150,000 to 180,000 low-income adults.

Currently, KanCare eligibility is limited to children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and seniors in need of long-term care who have exhausted their financial resources. Parents are eligible only if they earn less than a third of the federal poverty level, or about $9,200 annually for a four-person family.

Single adults without children currently are not eligible no matter their income. Expansion would extend eligibility to all Kansans who earn up to 138 percent of the poverty level, or $16,642 annually for an individual and $33,465 for a family of four.

How much expansion will cost the state depends on changes made to the federal health reform law, which currently obligates the federal government to cover no less than 90 percent of the cost of expansion. Under that formula, expansion would cost the state an additional $67.2 million in its first full year, according to state officials.

However, expansion supporters point to estimates compiled by the Kansas Hospital Association that show revenue and budget savings generated by expansion would more than cover the state’s share of the cost.

The House passed the expansion bill 81-44 in late February. If the Senate approves it without changes, it would go to Brownback, who while opposed to expansion has stopped short of saying that he would veto the bill.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio and KMUW covering health, education and politics in Kansas. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to kcur.org.

See more at http://kcur.org/post/kancare-expansion-bill-heads-senate-vote-next-week.