Kansas Insurance

 TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The legislature of work for a compromise health is stalled because Democrats continue Champion, state aid for poor families, so that parents can have more of insurance.

The House of Representatives and the Senate, the negotiating partners have agreed on the content of the bill. The provisions include an extension of the state of medical care for pregnant women, the state and greater reach for children and families to work and additional means for hospitals, which no or little cost reduced for the poor.

Other changes would allow Kansans to lose jobs, or go to keep their old longer and health insurance are designed, make sure you have more Kansans a deduction from income tax on the premiums that ‘they pay.

But the Democrats, the two negotiators, Senator David Haley, Kansas City, and Rep. Geraldine Flaharty, the agreement is not signed, the package display are not sufficiently ambitious. Your refusal of the Legislature has prevented the vote on the package Friday, before the legislature began its annual spring at the break.

Republicans are around them, but it requires a new stage of the proceedings, which must wait until the legislature returns on April 30 packed their affairs.

“They have a lot of good things, but you have a missing quantity,” said Flaharty their negotiators.

Republican negotiating partner was dismayed that meeting again Friday in an effort to pack, work on the bill before the break.

“It’s incredible,” said Senator Susan Wagle, Wichita, their chief negotiator of the Chamber.

The Legislature began the year with a 21-point plan Kansas Health Policy Authority in a phase of $ 330 million, expenditures for the health programme over five years. Legislators, the Authority during the year 2005 to check health and social services and to manage a number of programs.

Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius endorsed the plan, but never seriously considered, the legislature, the proposed increase in tobacco taxes, for the necessary financing.

The Republican majority in both houses of less ambitious proposals. The negotiators thought, the compromise bill presented an important step forward, and another agreement.

“I see this as pragmatic,” said Marcia Nielsen, the authority’s executive director. “Although I know, is the first step is not always sound like a giant leap for mankind, can not do progress if we have the first step. ”

The compromise package would increase spending for health care, programs for approximately $ 12 million in the fiscal year beginning on 1 July.

“I would like to see more,” said Senator Jim Barnett, an Emporia Republican, a physician, was not allowed to conduct negotiations, but has been heavily involved in health care discussions. “I do not believe that it is not enough, but the best of what we have to do. ”

During the past year, the legislature approved state aid for poor families, but said that would help them not start before 2009. The children of these families are protected by the state, but many of their parents.

Most legislators could not count on the potential costs, however. When fully phased, by the year 2013, it cost $ 111 million per year.

The Health Policy Authority also recommended the extension of the assistance, so that adults without children. That would finally, the annual costs to $ 251 million.

GOP leaders still wanted out. The establishment undertakes only the first year, the value of aid, while the Senate had early assistance for an indefinite period.

Senators, instead of extending medical care for children, their families in the federal budget twice the poverty line to 2.5 times - or between $ 35200 and $ 44000 for a single mother with two children.

The negotiating partners have agreed on a plan to combat the same group, but with the help of their parents, so that they can health plans offered by their employer. Often, the legislature has said that families are insurance, but are not likely to provide their share of the premiums.

The plan would help more than 3000 children and their background Men feel indirectly, coverage for some of their parents.

The compromise increases the state subsidies to 33 “safety net” clinics $ 2.5 million or 49 per cent, so that it can serve an additional 6100 patients per year. More pregnant women are eligible for medical and dental care and the state to pay.

Haley acknowledged that these proposals were a step forward but did not want the legislature, the promise to break it in the past year.

And Flaharty, said: “We must do this much, and we had too much on the table.”

– Democrats frustrated position Rep. Jeff Colyer, Overland Park, and the surgeon advised Republicans to the Assembly of the negotiating position of the team.

He said, a key role in providing compromise - for a declaration of love from home - mandate that employers provide to employees, forced to leave their jobs, the same health insurance for 18 months, if those former workers recover the full costs. Because of Kansas, losing thousands of workers who, after six months of coverage.

Colyer recalled that on Friday, the federal government announced that the nation-states that the unemployment rate jumped to 5.1 percent in March, the highest since September 2005, after Gulf Coast Hurricanes.

“There are thousands of Kansans, health insurance to lose, because it takes place sooner,” he said.