FBI investigates influence peddling by Brownback administration

Gov. Sam Brownback, Courtesy of the Kansas City Star

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is exploring whether confidantes of Gov. Sam Brownback operated influence-peddling operations in Kansas pivoting on personal access to the Republican governor and top administration officials, according to the Topeka Capital Journal.

The months-long inquiry involves Parallel Strategies, a Topeka consulting and lobbying firm created by a trio of veteran Brownback employees who left government service to work in an environment where coziness with former colleagues could pay dividends.

Of concern to the FBI were behind-the-scenes financial arrangements related to Brownback's privatization of the state's $3 billion Medicaid program. The governor's branding of KanCare handed to three for-profit insurance companies exclusive contracts to provide Medicaid services to 380,000 of Kansas' disabled and poor.

As it relates to KanCare, the three Medicaid contractors reinforced their lobbying operations by hiring individuals who are no strangers to Brownback.

A partner in Parallel Strategies was added in January by United Healthcare. Gary Haulmark, a former deputy Cabinet secretary in the Brownback administration, resigned from state government in 2013 to represent Amerigroup. Sunflower employs a key person who ran a lobbying firm with a Parallel Strategies partner from 2004 to 2010.

"I believe it is wrong for people as closely connected to the seat of power to be in a position of lobbying for pay," said former Sen. Dick Kelsey, a Republican who represented a district south of Wichita. "I still have a problem with the pay-to-play concept."

Kelsey said Brownback officials had a political interest in tamping down complaints about KanCare until after the November election. There is an aggressive behind-the-scene campaign to minimize public criticism about denying access to treatments, placing administrative hurdles on providers delivering care, and to delaying payment of contractors.

At the same time, Kelsey said, the managed care organizations want to please the administration by hiring Brownback associates. It is a symbiotic relationship, Kelsey said, that hasn't best served interests of clients.

Individuals who have expressed criticism about KanCare said they were targeted by Republicans representing the legislative or executive branches of state government.

Tom Laing, executive director of Interhab, an organization supporting people with developmental disabilities, said the group's two-year effort to block placement of DD clients in KanCare left him with political wounds. The level of political muscle brought into play by Brownback supporters was a surprise to some unfamiliar with Washington hardball, he said.

The GOP-led Legislature ordered an audit of the state's community development disability organizations, the majority of which are represented by Interhab.

"I've never felt partisanship like it has been applied," Laing said. "You're in the governor's corner or not. Folks to whom this happened have an obligation to talk about it. I don't care what party it is. The greatest danger is refusing to call it out."

Read the entire report for more detailed information.

Governor proposes additional funds for unserved waiting list.

Gov. Sam Brownback courtesy of The Capital Journal

The Governor today announced a small sum for increased expenditures to serve persons currently on the unserved waiting list.  Approximately $3 million is being proposed (all funds) which will be enough to  serve 77 persons.  

Let’s put it into this perspective. This is good news indeed for the 77 persons and their families who have been waiting so long who will now be served. But it is only a baby step when one considers more than 3000 persons are still waiting, and when one recognizes that this four term may end without a single new penny for service rates to raise the pay of community workers. 

Having recently read the triumphant news that $30 million in budget savings had been found elsewhere, we have to ask why so little of that was directed to the growing crisis facing persons with I/DD and the eroding quality capacity of our underfunded I/DD service network.  

Our waiting lists and the erosion of our reimbursement rates have been worsening for many years. So, this  certainly is not a new problem to lay at this Governor’s feet, but today’s announcement certainly does not give us a new result. It is simply more of the same – very little offered when so much more is needed.

Remembering Dr. Robert Harder

Robert Harder, Courtesy of Cjonline

As the news has reported, Dr. Bob Harder – pastor, legislator, cabinet secretary, advocate – passed away over the weekend, released from the deepening effects of a cancer that had taken him down. This article from the Topeka Capitol Journal summarizes his career, and the words of some who knew him well are clear reminders of the kind of leadership he represented in Topeka.

I worked for Dr. Harder, when he was Secretary, and worked with him as a legislative staff person who assisted him as he used his Secretary’s pulpit to facilitate legislative support for the programs sponsored by SRS. Tough, smart, hardnosed, tenacious … all these things described him well, but lost in those descriptors would be that his work, for decades, was to build and protect a network of government and community programs that were dedicated to the needs of persons who for a variety of disadvantages were seeking to get by and improve their lives in an otherwise hard and unforgiving world.

It is impossible to count the hundreds of thousands of persons he served, as well as the thousands of professionals he helped by leading, encouraging, guiding, admonishing,  and mentoring.  Dr. Harder will be missed, but his incredibly long tenure of leadership made a permanent mark on all of us, whether we know it or not;   therefore, his mission and his work will go forward.  

Tom Laing, Executive Director

InterHab

‘Health Care Compact’ bill sent to governor despite opposition

A bill authorizing Kansas to join other states in an attempt to gain control of federal health care dollars was approved by the Legislature before it adjourned Sunday.

House Bill 2553, or the ‘Health Care Compact’ bill, would allow Kansas to petition Congress for the right to decide how health care programs are structured and funded in the state.

Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger joined with the Kansas AARP to oppose the measure, citing its potential to transfer oversight of the federal Medicare program to state officials.

According to the Lawrence Journal-World, Praiger said House Bill 2553 would place federal funding for all health care services and health plans under the control of the Kansas Legislature and governor. Praeger also said if state revenues fall short then the funds for Medicare and other health programs could be used to support other state function.

“It is already happening with dollars meant for highway programs and funds in other state agencies being taken and used to offset spending for other legislative priorities, caused in part by the reduction in state income taxes,” Praeger said.

KHI News Service also reported on the commissioner’s opposition.

“It could jeopardize the coverage and benefits that seniors have come to count on,” Praeger said. “Kansans have paid into this program through payroll taxes and expect to receive the benefits they have been promised.”

Gene Meyer, chief executive officer of Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said to the Lawrence Journal World that the bill had the "potential to seriously damage hospitals and physicians in our ability to continue to deliver quality care to those we serve."

The House passed the compact bill, 74-48, on March 24.

However, some critics say that the bill is merely a symbolic statement by those opposed to the Affordable Care Act. The compact could not take effect unless approved by Congress, for that to happen the Affordable Care Act would have to be repealed with Congress ceding all authority to the states for healthcare funding.  

Kansas is the eighth state to endorse the compact. If approved by Congress, the member states could receive federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars as block grants, giving them the ability to restructure the programs.

'Prompt pay bill' could impact future of Medicaid expansion

This week Kansas legislators completed their work on House Bill 2552, also referred to as the “prompt pay bill”.

The bill is intended to ensure the state’s Medicaid managed care contractors promptly reimburse providers, addressing widespread reports of problems getting timely payments from managed care companies.

An amendment was added to the bill by the Senate prohibiting the state from expanding Medicaid eligibility without approval from the Legislature.

The Federal Health Reform Law encourages states to expand Medicaid eligibility to include all adults earning up to 138 percent of federal poverty guidelines. Kansas is one of 19 states deciding against the recommended expansion of Medicaid.

According to KHI News Service, Kansas currently has among the nation’s most restrictive Medicaid eligibility criteria. These criteria essentially limit the program to low-income children, the disabled, and the elderly. Childless adults cannot qualify regardless of their income and/or poverty status.

House Bill 2552 was approved by the Legislature, with the Medicaid provision included, and sent to Gov. Sam Brownback earlier this week for signature.

5 major impacts of Kansas tax cuts

Tax cuts enacted in Kansas in 2012 were among the largest ever enacted by any state. Last week the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published a comprehensive report on how these tax cuts have affected and will affect the state.

The report states that these huge tax cuts have left Kansas’ schools and other public services stuck in the recession, and declining further — a serious threat to the state’s long-term economic vitality. Meanwhile, promises of immediate economic improvement have utterly failed to materialize.

1. Deep income tax cuts caused large revenue losses.  Kansas’ tax cuts this year are costing the state about 8 percent of the revenue it uses to fund schools, health care, and other public services, a hit comparable to a mid-sized recession.  State data show that the revenue loss will rise to 16 percent in five years if the tax cuts are not reversed.
2. The large revenue losses extended and deepened the recession’s damage to schools and other state services.  Most states are restoring funding for schools after years of significant cuts, but in Kansas the cuts continue.  Governor Sam Brownback recently proposed another reduction in per-pupil general school aid for next year, which would leave funding 17 percent below pre-recession levels.  Funding for other services — colleges and universities, libraries, and local health departments, among others — also is way down, and declining.
3. The tax cuts delivered lopsided benefits to the wealthy.  Kansas’ tax cuts didn’t benefit everyone.  Most of the benefits went to high-income households.  Kansas even raised taxes for low-income families to offset a portion of the revenue loss; otherwise the cuts to schools and other services would have been greater still.
4. Kansas’ tax cuts haven’t boosted its economy.  Since the tax cuts took effect at the beginning of 2013, Kansas has added jobs at a pace modestly slower than the country as a whole.  The earnings and incomes of Kansans have performed slightly worse than the U.S. as a whole as well.  (An exception is farmers, whose incomes improved as the state recovered from a drought.)  And so far there’s no evidence that Kansas is enjoying exceptional business growth: the number of registered business grew more slowly last year than in 2012, and the state’s share of all U.S. business establishments fell over the first three quarters of last year, the latest data available.
5. There’s little evidence to suggest that Kansas’ tax cuts will improve its economy in the future.  No one knows for certain how Kansas’ economy will perform in the years ahead, but it isn’t likely to stand out from other states.  The latest official state revenue forecast, from November 2013, projects Kansas personal income will grow more slowly than total national personal income in 2014 and 2015.

That state’s massive tax cuts have created a large and growing revenue loss and forced further cuts in funding for schools and other public services that the state had already cut because of the recession.  The tax plan also has widened inequality and raised taxes on the lowest-income families.  Finally, a year after the cuts first took effect, the state’s economy is not performing particularly well, and there’s no evidence to suggest that the tax cuts will cause the economy to take off in the years ahead.
Read the entire Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report for more details.