Medicare

Amendment 5, to be considered by Missouri voters in August, would give the legislature the power to replace the state income tax with expanded sales taxes. Critics say it would be difficult to make up the lost revenue without imposing taxes on healthcare.

Rural Kansans could see longer drives to access healthcare or fewer health services because of hospital closures. A report found that Kansas has 28 rural hospitals at immediate risk of closure.

The Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform, a national policy organization, found 68 rural Kansas hospitals are at risk of closing, including 30 at immediate risk. Revenue isn’t keeping up with costs.

Medicare Advantage, a private alternative to traditional Medicare, offers extra benefits and low monthly premiums. However, prior authorizations and claim denials complicate this increasingly popular — and profitable — program for Medicare beneficiaries and their health care providers.

President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” cuts about $1 trillion in federal Medicaid funding. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley helped push for the inclusion of money for rural hospitals, but experts say it's just "a drop in the bucket" — and could force even more providers to close.

Federal lawmakers are considering big cuts to the health care program Medicaid. Some Kansans fear they’ll lose coverage or benefits.

Around this time last year, a quarter of Missouri nursing homes hadn’t been inspected in at least two years. Now the number is closer to 3%, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.

Low-income people who are disabled or over 65 — or both — qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. In 2022, that included 203,000 people in Missouri and 75,000 in Kansas. A bipartisan group of lawmakers agree: the two insurance programs are failing the country's most vulnerable patients.

Missouri will now extend Medicaid benefits for new mothers from 60 days to a full year postpartum. Supporters of the new law say that without the extension some health problems could go untreated. Plus: There is only one facility in Kansas that deals with runaway foster kids. But critics of the program say it is only making the situation worse.

One Kansas hospital was planning to start welcoming 100 nurses from the Philippines this fall. But a lengthy backlog in visa applications has put that on hold, possibly for a year or longer. Plus: A handful of states have not adopted the federal government’s option to extend postpartum care coverage for mothers on Medicaid.

Homelessness in urban areas is often visible on city sidewalks or public encampments. In rural Kansas and Missouri, unhoused people often go unseen — and unhelped. Plus, Missourians voted to expand Medicaid in 2020, making government-provided health insurance available to tens of thousands of low-income residents. But the change could also mean more layers of bureaucracy for hospitals.

Medical records show Dr. Scott Taggart Roethle has been sanctioned in at least 10 states for prescribing medications via telemedicine to patients with whom he did not have a physician-patient relationship.