I love Kansas City, I like St. Louis, and Columbia is OK.
But as far as I’m concerned, if the rest of the state slid off the earth, it wouldn’t bother me very much. That’s mainly because it has become so politically hidebound.
Missouri used to be a “bellwether state.” Now, it’s just of that big midwestern blob of red that also includes Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Missouri, as a whole, is so backward-thinking that it was the subject of a front-page, New York Times story comparing how two states were handling preparations for practical application of the Affordable Health Care Act.
The “good” state that was featured in the story, which appeared on Saturday, was Colorado. I guess I don’t have to tell you what the “bad” state was.
In Colorado, where Democrats control the governor’s office and the House and Senate, the new insurance market is gearing up for sign-ups, and market employees are traveling the state to explain how the market — called Connect for Health Colorado — will work. Connect for Health is even running TV commercials.
A separate article about Missouri, on the other hand, painted a stark and depressing (to me, anyway) picture. The author of the Missouri story, Robert Pear, wrote:
Show Me
While states like Colorado, Connecticut and California race to offer subsidized insurance to their citizens, Missouri stands out among the states that have put up significant obstacles. It has refused to create an insurance exchange, leaving the job to the federal government. It has forbidden state and local government officials to cooperate with the federal exchange.
That’s just dandy, isn’t it? Missouri getting nationwide headlines for throwing up “significant obstacles” to implementation of a federal law?
I have written about this before — that successful implementation of this law is not just a matter of principle with me. It’s got a very practical dimension. Our 25-year-old daughter Brooks has been dealing with a serious case of anorexia for more than three years. She has been in and out of hospitals, residential treatment facilities and residential support houses (where she is now).
She will turn 26 next March, and at least by then she will no longer be eligible to remain on my private health-insurance plan. My wife Patty and I are banking on her getting into a state or federally sponsored marketplace.
Looks like we’re going to get zero assistance from state government.
One of those whom Pear quoted about the Missouri situation is state Sen. Rob Schaaf, who represents Buchanan (St. Joseph) and Platte counties.
Schaaf wrote and sponsored a 2012 ballot measure that prevented the state from setting up its own insurance exchange. Of course, Missouri residents — many of whom loathe President Obama — approved the measure overwhelmingly. And, naturally, our tip-toey governor, Democrat Jay Nixon, has kept his trap shut because he doesn’t want to alienate the outstate voters. What a wuss!
But back to Schaaf…The Times quotes him as saying: “We (Missouri) can’t afford everything we do now, let alone provide free medical care to able-bodied adults. I have a philosophical problem with doing that, and I’m also worried about our country’s financial situation.”
What the hell is he talking about — “free medical care to able-bodied adults” ??? Public hospitals already provide that, and for-profit hospitals are supposed to provide some measure of free care to indigents.
And he’s worried about the country’s financial situation? Obviously, he’s not worried about the 850,000 uninsured Missouri residents.
…Now, here’s what Pear did not tell his readers about Schaaf. He is a physician with a family practice and is on the staff at Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph. The hospital is owned by a for-profit conglomerate called Heartland Health. To put it bluntly, Schaaf is in Heartland’s pocket, and I predict that one day he’s going to have a very big administrative position at Heartland.
Heartland and other health care conglomerates like the health care set-up just the way it is — where they can monopolize various areas and charge just about whatever they want for treatment.
The conglomerates see the Affordable Care Act as the first step toward health care reform, including more pressure for more reasonable pricing.
Schaaf
One provision of the bill that Schaaf sponsored and that voters approved is that state and local officials cannot provide “assistance or resources” of any kind to a federal exchange unless federal law explicitly requires it.
So, Schaaf and the voters essentially thumbed their noses at the state’s uninsured residents and said, “Getting health insurance is between you and the federal government. Good luck.”
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Sen. Schaaf is corrupt like all politicians.
The conglomerates love the AHA because they see 32 million customers. And another 30-35 million additional customers by 2020.
I hope and pray for the best medical situation for your daughter. With a national healthcare plan, Missouri and the rest of the country should drop borders. Citizens and those in the U.S. legally should get ANY healthcare.
This was a “budget-neutral” item when introduced, then Senators, like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu were caught selling their votes.
I embrace helping those in need. According to the American Heart Association, But the latest price for the AHA is $943 billion for the first decade. And reduce $143 billion from the Federal budget (which we have not had since 10/2008).. This does not include the additional 32-33 million people uninsured.
As an example of how we are lied to every month, the unemployment rate at 7.5% or so, counts only those drawing state unemployment benefits. There are 8 million unemployed who have used their benefits not being counted. Of course some try to find jobs much harder than others.
The only free healthcare will be anyone jailed for not joining.
If there is any possibility for a Presidential candidate to follow up with morals and a shred of integrity, this plan would resemble what was proposed when it was introduced.
We have Truman Medical Center (downtown and Lakewood). A patient in need can get the card – good for a year at a time. Then an administrator informs them they are not accepting new patients. A friend found out this in March of 2012. Another administrator advised my friend to go to the ER. And HCA has Patient’s Advocate a neighbor had $32,000 in bills for triage care, and a four-day stay, in ICU. The Patient’s Advocate came in her room a couple hours before release. Provided documents for financial assistance and the Billing Department contact details. AMA charged $500 for a short ambulance ride and initial care.
AMA dropped the charges and the HCA hospital dropped the $31,892.00 bill to $450.00 with a payment plan. This patient was completely uninsured.
There are some many pork items in this plan, it had to be pushed through before anyone read it.
I am for helping those in need – but our government contains thieves who spend billions to be re-elected. So they can be puppets for the banks.
The AHA is two-thousand-page bottomless pit.
I have read a little more than half..in 2020 years were are going to be right where are now – with over thirty-million uncovered U.S. citizens.
Fitz I pray for you, your family and others who have earned help. I donate to charities like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross. I help those in need, I just cannot stand to be lied to from the least of the evils offered our ballots.
And with the thievery within our politics, NOTHING EVER COSTS WHAT WE ARE TOLD!
A doctor told me many successful medical practices will be sold because of this plan.
Larry — When you say the conglomerates love “AMA,” do you mean the Affordable Care Act (ACA)???? Why would it be the AMA?
I disagree with you when you say all politicians are corrupt. That’s too broad a brush. Most of them gear their actions toward what it takes to get re-elected, but I don’t think there is any greater proportion of crooks in elected office than there is in civilian life. I have covered a lot of good, clean politicians.
Let’s just look at the mayors we have had since the 50s: Ilus W. Davis, Charlie Wheeler, Dick Berkley, Emanuel Cleaver, Kay Barnes, Mark Funkhouser and Sly James.
How many — and which — of those would you consider crooked?
To me, they were all honest and well intentioned, although one — the guy who flew his family to Orlando for a family vacation on city money — disappointed us badly on the integrity front.
…He didn’t help himself by blaming his secretary, either!
(That was a Kevin Murphy scoop. A more fearless and dogged reporter you will not find.)
An important correction to Larry’s comment about some of the unemployed not being counted by the government:
In fact, the unemployment rate is based on a household survey that asks if the person was working or looking for work during the survey period. If the person says he or she was unsuccessfully looking for work, he or she is counted as unemployed.
The survey doesn’t ask if he or she was receiving unemployment benefits. It doesn’t matter in the unemployment survey whether benefits were being received, were exhausted or were ineligible.
The unemployment rate survey has nothing to do with state (or federal) unemployment benefits. Sorry to get deep in the statistical weeds, but such misinformation about government “lying” makes people more suspicious about the data than they perhaps need to be.
Thanks for the correction, Diane. I’m sorry it took me so long to approve your comment (first-time comments must await moderation). I’ve been out all day.
Readers: Diane, as many of you know, is a long-time KC Star reporter. She has been on the business desk for the last 15 to 20 years, and employment matters are part of her coverage area.
How humorous that a far left rag in a city where perverts and whoremongers are considered to be viable candidates for high office and a city where the current totalitarian screwball mayor wants to tell everyone what they can eat and drink, condescends to want to tell others that they somehow don’t measure up to those lofty standards.
And so who is it that they hold aloft as pillars of good government? Colorado, a state where the Democrat/Communist dominated legislature’s conduct has been so authoritarian and egregious to the freedoms of its citizens that several counties are mounting a serious effort to secede from the state and where manufacturers in one of the state’s leading industries are pulling up stakes and fleeing to more liberated climes as if their own personal Berlin Wall had just fallen.
Others given (dis)honorable mention are California (already on the verge of bankruptcy) and Connecticut, a state whose totalitarian Democrat dominated legislature is so stupid that after witnessing some nut gun down 20 innocent children they decided to further disarm the state’s honest citizens, sending firearms manufacturers there scurrying to neighboring states where freedom still had a majority.
Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma are all busy expanding their citizens freedoms while the loons in Colorado, New York, California and Connecticut are busy doing their damnedest to trampled our Constitution and create police states.
As for healthcare, I’ve watched for decades as liberals have imposed one (deliberately) self-destructive measure after another on the best health system in the world. When I was a child a doctor came to my working class house to care for me at a rate my factory working father could afford to pay out of his pocket. Today, thanks to this country’s clandestine socialists, the health care system is in a tatters and millionaires couldn’t afford that kind of treatment.
If you truly want your daughter to have the kind of care she deserves, without destroying healthcare for the rest of us and bankrupting the country in the process, you would demand that government get the hell out of healthcare (and damn near everything else its stuck its evil nose into). As someone recently mentioned, the country seems to be approaching a libertarian moment and sadly, it probably will not arrive in time to save our nation.
As for crooked mayors, Emanuel Cleaver certainly had more baggage than a typical freight train and Kay Waldo Barnes was nuts, if not corrupt. Funk seemed honest and well motivated, but hampered (like Sly James) by members of his own family. Sly James also seems to be a decent man, courageous in some ares, but I predict his administration will fail owing to his cowardice in dealing with the criminal elements in the black community.
Please note that my previous post has a few typos. Like The Star, I can’t afford a copy editor and so those of you who truly do want to stick your heads in the sand can use those as an excuse to ignore the entire post. Thank you.
Not surprisingly the comments section of the article you linked to is closed. Apparently a few too many of the peasants took their heads out of the sand long enough to try and tell their betters in New Your City to go piss up a rope.
John — The only major typo I saw saw you had “taters” instead of “tatters.” You must have been thinking about the Kansas City Royals’ booming bats.
…I’m totally with you on health care costs…They are not only outrageous, but also the patients generally have no idea what they are being charged for and how much. I remember when my father, an accountant who kept track of everything involving a $ sign, went into surgery for a rotator cuff tear, I believe. He had the presence of mind to look at the clock in the operating room when they wheeled him in, and somehow he noted or found out how long he had been in surgery. I think the bill showed 75 minutes in surgery, but he knew for a fact it had been 45 or 50. He called the hospital and got an adjustment!
That’s one of the things I loved about my Dad, who died in 2007 — absolute precision on financial matters. And my family is reaping the benefits now.
…On Sly, you can’t be serious about him being reluctant to deal with criminals in the black community. Remember last year when yutes (as The Smartman would say) were running around the Plaza terrorizing people. Sly was there and hit the ground when shots were fired. He pushed for a curfew and admonished parents to pay attention to what their children were doing and where they were going and to do everything possible to put a stop to the idle hanging out.
John, The Star still has at least one copy editor, Don Munday, but he apparently spends at least some of his time writing poetry, if you can call it that, as opposed to catching typos and out-and-out errors. At any rate, I certainly sympathize with the situation Jim is in with respect to his daughter and the millions of other Americans who are facing comparable situations. As a nation we have high expectations when it comes to health care but I’m afraid that there are only so many resources to go around. We already have what amounts to rationing – it’s just that only those with the means are currently able to afford the very finest of care. Moreover, we are generally living longer than people used to live and a great deal of money is being spent to keep people alive in the final stages of life. Does this really make any sense?
I’m going to give the health care system as little business as I possibly can. I do go to the doctor whenever something is wrong, which is almost always minor stuff, but when it comes to extraordinary procedures, hold them for me. If I had a heart attack, I’d have the necessary work done, of course, but if I contracted cancer, I don’t think I’d go to extreme measures to hang on and be miserable for another year or two. When the grim reaper comes, I’ll try to be ready. That’s why I try to never have more than one or two irons in the fire.
Rick, I have a very warm spot in my heart for the copy editors I worked with at The Star. Part of my deal in agreeing to write a column was that I would sit with the copy editor and work with them to put my column on the page. I was totally impressed with their ability to retain my ideas while both shortening and clarifying them. I also had two fantastic editors in Rich Hood and Steve Winn.
As for Sly, Jim, I was also impressed with him when the clown rushed the stage when he was speaking and he stood there and stared the guy down until security could remove him. Where he fell down was since then in claiming that there was nothing he could do about the violence in the inner city. If the slaughter is to be stopped someone with credibility in that community must speak out against the don’t snitch, hip-hop culture that is poisoning the entirety of black culture and setting race-relations back decades. Sadly Mayor James does not seem to be up to the task and I think it will doom his administration as The Plaza and Starlight are negatively impacted.
When I was in that field I ran econometric models of the health care system and the culprit for where we are now is a combination of the increased demand created by Medicaid and Medicare and the reduction in supply caused by counter-productive health planning programs like Certificate of need, the State health Planning and development agencies and the various Health System Agencies, the result was predictable which is why I suspect it was done deliberately as part of the Cloward-Piven model of social change that is at the heart of Deathcare.
I missed whatever story or news accounts there were about Sly saying he couldn’t do anything about violence in the inner city. If he did say that, he was wrong…Look what Mayor Bloomberg has done in New York with the stop-and-frisk program. I don’t know how that would go over with the black community here, but black leaders would be smart to embrace it. It would be great for law-abiding citizens in that it would nip a lot of potential felonious activity in the bud. It would be the best way to reduce black-on-black crime.
I am not so concerned with my security that I’m willing to give away my Constitutional rights to Mayor Bloomberg, or anyone else. But one can speak out against the complete stupidity that compares a drug besotted thug like Trayvon Martin to a Rosa Parks or Emmett Till. Mayor James can boost the morale of the KCMO PD by indicating publicly that he will support their efforts in holding young gangbangers accountable (and perhaps stop using them as a primary source of revenue enhancement). And perhaps he could even join local blogger Wayne Hodges who courageously called into question the financial motivations of race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. (I will note here that Mayor James’ son has certainly not helped his father in establishing an appropriate role model for other black youth to follow, but I will not join those who criticize the Mayor for his son’s failings.)
I think it’s interesting that they threw the gal who got in the fountain at the Royals game into jail overnight. How many times have they done that with any of the miscreants down on the Plaza?
I’m glad you mentioned the story about the girl and the fountain, John…I was at the game last night, and I knew something was going on out in the left-center-field area but I didn’t lock in on it early enough to know exactly what. I did see someone being escorted out.
Here’s a link to the Channel 5 story…The oddest part is that she allegedly solicited the officers in an attempt to duck municipal charges.
http://www.kctv5.com/story/23059206/woman-25-arrested-after-jumping-into-the-fountains-at-kauffman-stadium
Interestingly, the bylines on the story are Chris Oberholtz and DeAnn Smith, both of whom are former KC Star staffers…At this writing, The Star does not have anything about the incident on its Web site. Just for fun, let’s see how long it takes them to get something up…This is definitely newsworthy.
P.S. I should say that Bob Dutton had a fleeting mention of someone going into the fountain in his game story this morning…but there’s been no follow-up with the name and charges.
The Star put up a story at 3:15.
Ever timely. I’ve got tickets for tomorrow night. I’ve got a relative coming in who’s a Twins fan. normally I just do Sporting KC and the T-Bones. Oh, and I think they just cut the gal loose with a warning to others that they too might wind up spending a night in jail, but I’m betting no charges.
Tony’s got a nice story on the woman. Fairly spiffy.
I was wrong, they’re throwing the book at this gal, and Yael is leading the lynch mob. Sad.