By Bridget McCandless, MD on March 29, 2017
President and CEO, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Editor’s note: Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed the bill. We expect the House to delay a vote on a motion to override the veto until next week. The Alliance for a Healthy Kansas has compiled a list of key lawmakers to contact with your concerns. What a great week for Kansas!! I could not be more proud […]
By Bridget McCandless, MD on March 23, 2017
President and CEO, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
I have been reading so many opinions and analyses of the recently proposed American Health Care Act. In some of the more nuanced discussions, people differ on what it will and won’t do. I think we can be certain that everyone involved recognizes that health care and insurance is complicated and that solutions for one […]
By Mark Holland on March 2, 2017
Mayor/CEO, Unified Government of Wyandotte County & Kansas City, Kansas
As Mayor of a city with a high rate of poverty, it is my responsibility to advocate for our most vulnerable residents. This includes those who do not have access to quality health care. For too long, our community has endured a high rate of uninsured residents. In 2013, before we launched a campaign to […]
KanCare is in trouble. The state of Kansas’ Medicaid program, which has been run by three Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) since being privatized in 2013, is beset by administrative and operational problems that threaten the health and safety of its beneficiaries, among the most vulnerable Kansans. Patients, advocates, health care providers, and others engaged with […]
By Bridget McCandless, MD on February 9, 2017
President and CEO, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
From inception, the Affordable Care Act attempted to strike a delicate balance between affordability for consumers and sustainability for insurers, all against a backdrop of varying health risks. Some components of the ACA have worked tremendously well, resulting in increased health care access for millions of Americans, while other components have been fraught with difficulty, […]
By Jessica Hembree on November 14, 2016
Program Officer, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Now that we’ve had some time to process the outcomes of this general election, I wanted to provide a recap of Tuesday’s election results and some thoughts about how the election results will impact HCF’s policy work in the coming years. National Election Results While it is too early to know the impact of the […]
Three weeks ago, HCF was proud to sponsor American Public Square’s Dinner at the Square event, The Painful Truth. People in attendance listened to a thoughtful, informed and respectful discussion on opioid abuse and whether Missouri needs a prescription drug monitoring program. Missouri is the only state in the nation without a prescription monitoring program. You can […]
On August 3rd, expanding KanCare became much more likely than it had been the day before (in Kansas, the Medicaid program is known as KanCare). What happened? August 2nd was primary election day in Kansas. After years of ongoing budget crises, cuts to state agencies, and ideological steamrolling in the statehouse, Kansas voters had seemingly […]
By Bradford T. Hart on September 15, 2016
Program Officer, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Recently, I had the opportunity to testify before the Jackson County legislature on the topic of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). As many in our region already know, Missouri has the dubious distinction of being the only state in the country to not have a PDMP, the single most impactful tool to reduce the supply […]
By Jill Peltzer, PhD, APRN on September 6, 2016
Advocacy Team Leader, Kansas Action Coalition, Assistant Professor, University of Kansas School of Nursing
Cynthia Teel, PhD, RN, FAAN
Co-Lead, Kansas Action Coalition, Associate Dean, Graduate Programs, University of Kansas School of Nursing
Nurses play a critical role in the health care system. Factoring in total time spent with patients, one could argue that they are the face of health care. For this and many other reasons, the Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report, Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, advocates for nurses to be full partners in […]
HCF's Local Health Buzz Blog aims to discuss health and health policy issues that impact the uninsured and underserved in our service area. To submit a blog, please contact HCF Communications Officers, Jennifer Sykes, at .
