Dave Dexter, a filing clerk in the Statehouse document room, readies for the launch of the 2012 Kansas Legislature. by phil_cauthon

With the launch of the 2012 Legislature this week, policymakers face a variety of health-related issues.

Perhaps the most significant among them will be Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed realignment of the state’s Medicaid program, which includes reorganization of three major agencies. But there also will be a raft of other issues ranging from legislation to expand the work that can be done by dental technicians to efforts to boost spending on tobacco-use prevention and a possible move to limit medical malpractice awards should the state Supreme Court strike down the existing cap.

KHI News Service has compiled and summarized the agendas of the administration and the state’s major health-related groups and agencies.

The Brownback agenda

The governor is scheduled to give the State of the State address on Wednesday and then release the details of his administration’s budget plan to legislative spending committees.

But administration officials already announced their top health agenda item for the session: to reform the Medicaid program by expanding managed care to the disabled and elderly.

As part of the plan, which is called KanCare, they are seeking three companies to provide Medicaid services statewide. The companies’ contract bids are due Jan. 31, and administration officials want KanCare operational by Jan. 1, 2013.

“We are putting our attention on Medicaid reform and the proposed executive reorganization order,” said Sara Arif, spokesperson for the Kansas Department on Aging, which is slated to grow significantly as part of the makeover and become the new Kansas Department for Aging and Human Services.

“Our primary legislative priority for the 2012 session is the governor’s proposal to reorganize state government and establish KanCare,” said Angela de Rocha, spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

Key legislators have said they intend to put in place this session an oversight committee to monitor the governor’s reforms. And some legislators, including members of the Joint Committee on Home and Community Based Services, have voiced concerns about including services for the developmentally disabled in the managed care expansion.

Apart from that, the governor’s plan is expected to go largely unopposed, especially since the administration signaled it would not add new responsibilities to SRS as part of its Medicaid agency reorganizations.

Nonetheless, the proposed Medicaid reforms are of such scale that they have become a top legislative issue for a variety of provider groups, including the nursing home industry, the hospital and doctor associations, the state’s safety net clinics, mental health advocates and social workers.

'No reductions'

“Our top priority (for the session) is going to be making sure that in all the discussions that go on about the managed care changes in Medicaid, we don’t put ourselves in a position of the state paying for services that are provided by people who are not licensed,” said Sky Westerlund, executive director of the Kansas Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Cindy Luxem, chief executive of the Kansas Health Care Association, a nursing home trade group, said the organization’s priority for the session would be “working on maintaining the integrity of the Medicaid program. No reductions.”

Administration officials have said they expect their reform plan to be executed without significant cuts in payments to nursing homes, doctors, hospitals, social workers or other Medicaid service providers.

But that doesn’t mean the provider groups won’t be on alert this session for changes that might hurt them.

→ Continue reading about this and eleven other major health issues before the Legislature this year at khi.org/2012session.