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Independiente visits Sporting KC tonight

A pivotal battle beckons Thursday night at Children’s Mercy Park when Sporting Kansas City plays host to Panamanian side Independiente in the decisive second leg of the 2019 Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League Quarterfinals.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. CT showdown are included in season ticket member packages and remain available at SeatGeek.com.

Thursday’s match will stream live in English on YahooSports.com and the Yahoo Sports app, while a Spanish-language telecast will air live on Univision Deportes. ESPN 95.3 FM (English) and ESPN Deportes KC 1480 AM (Spanish) will carry the game locally over the radio, and the new Sporting KC App will provide additional in-game updates.

In order to reach the Concacaf Champions League Semifinals for the first time, Sporting must overcome a 2-1 deficit against an Independiente outfit that prevailed last Wednesday in La Chorrera, Panama. Manager Peter Vermes’ men can win the series with a 1-0 triumph or a multi-goal victory, having claimed an important away goal through Ilie Sanchez in the first leg at Estadio Agustin Sanchez.

Tournament debutants Independiente, meanwhile, would advance with a win, a draw or a one-goal loss in which the visitors score at least twice (3-2, 4-3, etc.). The latter scenario would see Les Abejitas progress on the away goals tiebreaker. Should Sporting win by a 2-1 scoreline on Thursday, the series will be decided by a penalty kick shootout and no extra time will be played.

Second-leg scenarios
• Sporting wins the series with: a 1-0 victory or a win by multiple goals.
• Independiente wins the series with: a win, a draw or a one-goal loss in which they score at least twice (2-3, 3-4, etc.)
• The series goes straight to penalty kicks with: a 2-1 win for Sporting

Facing a must-win situation, Sporting will aim to build off Sunday’s 2-0 defeat of the Philadelphia Union. Ilie gave his team an early lead from the penalty spot, tying Krisztian Nemeth with his third goal of the year in all competitions, before a late Union own goal off a Gerso Fernandes cross sealed the result in a festive MLS home opener at Children’s Mercy Park.

Independiente has assumed the Cinderella role during the 2019 Champions League, upsetting Canadian giants Toronto FC with an emphatic 5-1 aggregate win in the Round of 16.

Manager Francisco Perlo’s side made another statement of intent last week, striking in either half through Romeesh Ivey and Alexis Corpas to sink Sporting. Ivey’s three goals are tied for the second-most in the tournament, while Panamanian international Omar Browne has been equally influential with two goals and two assists in three Champions League appearances.

Perlo fielded a second-choice squad on Saturday in Panama as Independiente settled for a 0-0 draw with Universitario in Liga Panameña de Futbol. His squad arrives in Kansas City hoping to win against another MLS side en route to the semifinals.

Prevailing on Thursday would be a historic achievement for both clubs and preserve the possibility of a team outside of Mexico winning the Champions League for the first time since the competition’s modern era began in 2008.

Moreover, the ultimate prize of $500,000 and a potential berth in the FIFA Club World Cup would remain a realistic target for the series winner. It would also pit Sporting or Independiente against the winner between Atlanta United FC and Monterrey in the semifinals, currently slated for April 2-4 and April 9-11. Monterrey owns a 3-0 aggregate lead going into tonight’s second leg in Atlanta.

Children’s Mercy Park has earned a reputation as one of the toughest places to play in the country, and Thursday gives Sporting the opportunity to leverage a powerful homefield advantage on the international stage. Past history paints a positive picture for the hosts, who are 4-0-3 at home all-time against Central American and Caribbean opponents. That seven-game stretch includes four multi-goal wins, four shutouts, 12 goals scored and just three goals conceded.

Sporting is one of five MLS clubs that have participated in the 2019 Champions League, which serves as North America’s premier club tournament. Toronto FC were eliminated in the Round of 16, while the New York Red Bulls and Houston Dynamo were ousted in the quarterfinals by Mexican foes Santos Laguna and Tigres UANL, respectively. Should Atlanta fail to overturn their 3-0 deficit versus Monterrey, Sporting will be the last MLS representative standing in the competition.

Story from Sporting KC

Senators from Wyandotte County differ over BPU amendment

David Haley is tired of hearing people complain to him about their Board of Public Utilities bills.

He was so tired, he told the Senate, that he introduced an amendment on Wednesday afternoon that would allow BPU customers to seek answers to their questions about their bills at the Kansas Corporation Commission.

Sen. Haley, a Democrat who represents the 4th District, did not get full support for the amendment from the other Wyandotte County senators, and the amendment failed in a voice vote Wednesday on the Senate floor.

The questions being considered by the Senate were whether Haley’s amendment would provide consumer protection for residents of Kansas City, Kansas, would it add another layer of bureaucracy and expense to services, or whether it would negatively affect the success of the underlying bill that it was being placed on.

The Kansas Corporation Commission is a state agency that oversees private utilities in Kansas. The BPU is not under the KCC; under the state’s laws, the BPU is a public utility governed by a local elected board.

Sen. Haley introduced his amendment on another bill that would require a study of utilities. His amendment would have allowed BPU customers to ask the KCC about any charges, procedures, practices or rule differences, and then the BPU would have provided a timely response to the KCC on the customer’s question.

Sen. Haley said although people are elected to the BPU regularly who promise to make changes, they don’t seem to make changes once they get there. He wanted a neutral third-party such as the KCC to answer questions.

Sen. Pat Pettey, D-6th Dist., whose late spouse was an elected board member of the BPU, on the Senate floor said she was saddened at the implication that this community could not make good choices in electing people to the BPU.

She noted that the BPU board, which meets every other week, has a time on the agenda for citizens to make comments, and the BPU staff is present to handle the comments at that time. Then there is a report to the board on the resolution of the complaint, she said. She said the BPU and its staff have worked diligently to improve customer service in the past 10 years, and have evening office hours for customers, accept credit card payment without an extra charge on the card, and respond to customer needs.

Sen. Pettey said the BPU’s rates are below the investor-owned utilities’ rates and below the national average. They are also taking steps to become more energy efficient and reduce the carbon footprint, she said.

“Presently, if I want to call the KCC about the BPU, I can call the KCC about the BPU,” Sen. Pettey said. “They’ll then refer me back to the BPU, because that’s who should be handling those concerns.”

Sen. Haley said he was standing up for the little guy with this amendment, not the companies.

He cited an example from this past week, when several BPU customers received bills dating from four to seven years ago. He said the KCC would have told customers of other utilities in Kansas that they didn’t have to pay any bill that hadn’t been sent out within a year by their utility. Customers discovered these bills were not legitimate after a number of posts were made on social media, according to Sen. Haley.

“If everything’s all right, why not let people get a clearer understanding without going through their state senator?” Sen. Haley asked.

Sen. Haley said he thought there were thousands of questions to be answered from BPU customers. He mentioned the cold weather rule and some customers who couldn’t get their utilities turned back on, plus people who could not afford to remain in their homes.

Sen. Kevin Braun, R-5th Dist., said he had a lot of respect for the people who work at the BPU, and he thought Haley’s amendment would be better going back to the committee level for more work. He added he did not want to risk the current bill by placing this amendment on it.

Sen. Braun ran unsuccessfully for the BPU 1st District, at large, in 2017. During the 2017 campaign, he said he supported more affordable BPU rates and he was in favor of removing the PILOT tax from the BPU bills.

Sen. Pettey said she has heard from some BPU customers, but they are not in the thousands. She also has heard from some who were happy that their BPU charges were bundled with their trash fees, sewer charges and other charges on the BPU bill, which include the PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) fee.

Sen. Pettey said she found out that the emails some customers received in the past week about old bills were not valid requests. They were attempting to find out how they were sent out, if a former contractor was involved, and if there was some compromise of data.

“This is an elected board by the same people who elected myself, Sen. Haley and Braun,” Sen. Pettey said. “And they do have open meetings. I do believe there is a cost that would be incurred by this amendment.”

A BPU customer would approach the KCC with a question, then the information would have to be provided, and there would be a cost incurred, she said.

Sen. Pettey also told the Senate that utilities in Kansas City, Kansas, were back on faster than in Johnson County or Missouri during a recent storm.

A hearing was held on Feb. 18 in the Senate Utilities Committee on a bill supported by Sen. Haley. However, the bill’s wording at that time was different from the amendment that was presented on Wednesday. The previous bill would have brought the BPU under the scrutiny of the KCC for rate hearings, and at the committee meeting in February, Sen. Haley said that was not what he wanted to propose. He just wanted a place for BPU customers to make comments to a third party and get answers, he said.

Sen. Haley’s bill on Feb. 18 was opposed by several speakers, including a representative of the BPU, the state municipal utilities organization, and the McPherson BPU, a smaller utility which would have been affected by the bill.

At the committee hearing Feb. 18, the BPU representative said he had conducted a survey of BPU customers who were in the BPU’s lobby paying their bills, and the survey had shown a positive response from an overwhelming majority of them.

Third hospital once run by North Kansas City company closes its doors

by Dan Margolies and Jim McLean, Kansas News Service

Yet another ailing rural hospital once operated by EmpowerHMS, which used to be based in North Kansas City, Missouri, has closed.

The Horton (Kansas) Community Hospital about 78 miles northwest of Kansas City shut its doors at 5 p.m. Tuesday, according to City Administrator John Calhoon.

“I can tell you the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has been here a couple of days this week and the attorney general’s office arrived yesterday afternoon and were there into the early evening,” Calhoon said.

“However, I believe that the hospital basically voluntarily shut down due to lack of personnel from no wages being paid to them since Feb. 15th.”

C.J. Grover, a spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, said in a statement that the attorney general’s office “has an ongoing investigation into Horton Community Hospital.”

“We have no further comment at this time,” he said.

Gerald Kratochvil, a spokesman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said officials of the agency were at the hospital to conduct a survey of the hospital after receiving a complaint.

“Under CMS (the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) rules, we’re not allowed to reveal what the complaints were or who made the complaints,” Kratochvil said. “We’ll likely have a report coming out regarding the results of the survey. However, it might not matter since the hospital is closed, so CMS will determine if they need a report from us.”

The hospital’s interim CEO, Ty Compton, could not be reached for comment.

The 25-bed hospital’s closure came just weeks after two other hospitals once operated by EmpowerHMS turned off the lights.

Oswego Community Hospital in Oswego, Kansas, about 160 miles south of Kansas City, shut down a month ago. The 12-bed facility said it was no longer able to cover its operating expenses.

And 15-bed I-70 Community Hospital in Sweet Springs, Missouri, about 65 miles east of Kansas City, also said about a month ago that it was temporarily closing after state regulators said it was “out of regulatory compliance.”

It’s not clear if I-70 Community Hospital will be able to reopen; federal regulators have cut off its participation in the Medicare program, typically a death knell for a small community hospital.

Until recently, all three hospitals — Horton, Oswego and I-70 — had been owned and operated by EmpowerHMS, a company that bought up ailing rural hospitals with the aim of turning them around. Empower until recently was based in North Kansas City, but its office appears to have been vacated.

Earlier this year, Empower transferred management of 13 of its hospitals in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida and North Carolina to Florida-based iHealthcare. Attempts to reach iHealthcare officials at the phone number listed on the company’s website were unsuccessful.

All 13 hospitals, including Hillsboro Community Hospital in Hillsboro, Kansas, and Fulton Medical Center in Fulton Missouri, have struggled recently to make payroll, pay creditors and keep hospital supplies on hand.

Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly released a statement on Wednesday noting that Horton Community Hospital is the third rural hospital in Kansas to close in the last three months. Mercy Hospital in Fort Scott closed on Dec. 31.

“This is becoming a far too frequent occurrence in our state. Local hospitals are key to the health of Kansas families and are often one of the largest employers in a small town,” Kelly said. “Elected leaders must work together to do more to support our local hospitals.”

The closest hospital to Horton, which has a population of about 1,700, is Hiawatha Community Hospital in Hiawatha, Kansas, about 12 miles north.

In addition to the immediate Horton community, the hospital served the Kansas Kickapoo Tribe just west of Horton as well as several small nearby communities like Willis and Everest.

Calhoon said Horton Community Hospital had between 40 and 50 employees and had served the community for about five decades.

Until the end, he said, employees “really put their heart and soul in trying to hold out as long as they could in hopes they would get their wages paid to them.”

“The promises and statements that were made by corporate never came through and unfortunately, we’re without a hospital,” Calhoon said.

Anticipating the hospital might close, the town made arrangements with Town and Country Ambulance, about 12 miles northwest, to ensure that ambulance service would not be interrupted.

“We had no lapse in ambulance service,” Calhoon said. “But we do want to get every other type of medical provider and services that we can back to our community as soon as possible.”

Rep. John Eplee, an Atchison Republican, met recently with hospital administrators in three communities near his district — including Horton — to determine what it would take to keep their doors open. He said administrators at all three — Horton, Winchester and Hiawatha — said that passing Gov. Kelly’s Medicaid expansion proposal would provide needed infusions of cash.

“The recurrent theme that I heard was that KanCare expansion would make a big difference in stabilizing them and allowing them to catch their breath,” Eplee said.

KanCare was the name given to the state’s Medicaid program when former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback privatized it in 2013.

Eplee, a physician, is one of several Republicans eager to vote with Democrats to pass legislation to extend KanCare coverage to an estimated 130,000 additional low-income Kansans. But at the halfway point of the 2019 session, Republican leaders in the House and Senate appear determined to block a vote on the governor’s expansion bill.

“I’m not in a position to know whether leadership will allow this to come to a vote or not,” Eplee said. “I’m obviously in the camp that I hope we get that opportunity but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Opponents of expansion say the state can’t afford to increase the cost of what is already the state’s second most expensive program at a time when more money is needed for public schools, universities, highways and the state’s troubled foster care program.

GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to remove funding for the governor’s expansion bill from the budget.
Eplee and other supporters of expansion insist expansion is affordable given that the federal government is obligated to cover 90 percent of the state’s costs. In addition, they say, expansion would generate millions of dollars in offsetting savings.

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor at KCUR. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.
Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks. www.kcur.org

See more at https://www.kcur.org/post/third-hospital-once-run-north-kansas-city-company-closes-its-doors