Week one of the 2005 Kansas
Legislative Session was a relatively quiet
one. The most interesting events occurred in the Senate,
where they
spent over two hours debating their rules for the Session,
and they
passed the Constitutional Amendment that would ban same sex
marriage.
It doesn't look like the
Amendment will have quite as easy a time in
the House, though.
The Governor delivered her FY
2006 budget to the Legislature on
Tuesday. She has added $6.3 million all funds for the DD
waiting list,
and $2.5 million all funds for the PD waiting list. She's
also added
$7.5
million for rates on the DD waiver.
There is no FE waiting list,
so there was no money added to that waiver. About $2.5
million in
federal Medicaid funds will be available in the MH and DD
systems as a
result of a funding shift. $5.5 million is added to the
nursing
facility budget, but the number of people projected to be
served in the
NFs
does not grow.
The SRS Stakeholders
Teleconference is this week, so we'll likely hear
more details there.
The Governor also introduced
her Executive Reorganization Order (#33)
during week one. Here's a link to an overview of the plan:
http://www.ksgovernor.org/docs/HealthyKSOutlineFinal.pdf
The reorganization would
establish a Division of Health Policy and
Finance within the Department
of Administration. Bob Day, Director of
the Governor's Office of Health Planning and Finance
provided testimony
about the plan on Thursday to the Senate Financial
Institutions and
Insurance
Committee. He reviewed the
document I referenced above. The
plan was fairly well received. Sen. Barnett (R-Emporia),
who is a
physician, asked the most questions. He expressed concern that
the
revenue source for the plan (a $.50 tax increase on packs
cigarettes)
would not increase at the same rate as the expenses within
the plan.
Bob said the Department of
Revenue projects consistent revenue from the
tobacco tax. He also said if we are able to reduce the number
of people
who are uninsured, we will be
able to reduce the pressure on the health
care system for the unreimbursed
medical care that is delivered each
year.
The one really good bit of
news in the first week was the makeup of the
Senate Ways
and Means Subcommittee on SRS.
This is the committee that
will review and make recommendations about the SRS budget.
Sen.
Umbarger (R-Thayer) will chair the Subcommittee. Sen. Teichman (R-
Sen. Betts (D-Wichita) will
serve on the Subcommittee. Sen. Schodorf is
the only veteran Ways and Means member in this bunch, but
they are all
very solid moderates, who are likely to be supportive of
our issues.
The make-up of the
Subcommittee on the Department on Aging is equally
good. Sen. Schodorf will chair
this Subcommittee. She'll be joined by
Sen.
Schmidt (R-Topeka) and Sen. Betts.
Sen. Schmidt worked for SRS
until the Friday before the Session began. She was one of
the
pharmacists for Medicaid for many years.
Either Jennifer or I will
send you weekly updates about the goings-on
under the dome. Jennifer, Sheila and I are also meeting
weekly with
SILCK to
coordinate our activities. Please
let us know if you have any
questions or need more information about anything I've shared
here.
-Tanya
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