Daily Archives: Sept. 2, 2007

Open thread 9/2

Sept. 2, 20071:05 a.m.

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Open thread | Comments (122)

Do not count on a Kansachusetts health plan

Sept. 2, 20071:04 a.m.

The ideological skirmish set off when Gov. Kathleen Sebelius mentioned “universal coverage” in her State of the State address in January could resume once the Kansas Health Policy Authority delivers its reform proposals to the Legislature this fall. But dispatches from the authority’s just-concluded 20-city listening tour have only underscored the need to do something substantive about the state’s 267,000 uninsured. And it would be a shame if lawmakers rushed to judgment about the authority’s motives, expecting a “Kansachusetts” plan.
“This isn’t Massachusetts,” Marcia Nielsen, executive director of the authority, told the Kansas City Star. “I don’t think Kansans embrace government intervention needlessly. We’ve got to maximize market-driven solutions, ensuring that we provide incentives as opposed to mandates.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Health and safety | Comments (46)

Do not ban public smoking, say funeral directors

Sept. 2, 20071:02 a.m.

A state legislative committee Thursday killed a proposal for a statewide indoor public smoking ban (24 states now have them) despite the pleas of public health officials, who noted that secondhand smoke kills more than 250 Kansans each year and helps trigger more than 2,100 new heart attacks.
The committee decided that the issue was better left to cities and not the state. It also heard from bar owners who said a ban could hurt business and interfere with their rights, as well as from the Kansas Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association, whose director said a ban “would prohibit smoking in the portion of a funeral home which is being used as a private residence.”
No doubt it would hurt funeral directors’ business in other ways, too.
Posted by Randy Scholfield

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Health and safety | Comments (30)

Interesting coda to Tiahrt amendment fight

Sept. 2, 20071:01 a.m.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recently released data showing the states to which guns used in 2006 crimes had been originally traced, though not the names of dealers. For example, the 1,754 firearms recovered in connection with Kansas crimes last year mostly came from Kansas (758), Missouri (126), Oklahoma (43) and Texas (33). In response to the data release, the New York Daily News editorialized that “the ATF’s action was all the more surprising in that it appeared to violate an odious federal law, known as the Tiahrt amendment, that bars publication of gun data as a way to protect the industry from lawsuits.”
In written response, Chuck Knapp, spokesman for Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, suggested the editorial should have said that “Tiahrt was right when he has stated repeatedly that the so-called Tiahrt amendment did not prohibit the release of the referenced data.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Kansas delegation | Comments (83)

Good point, but also a big if

Sept. 2, 20071:00 a.m.

“Let me tell you, if I beat the Clintons, folks aren’t going to ask whether I’m tough enough.”
– Barack Obama, on campaign trail in New Hampshire
Posted by Rhonda Holman

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Presidential race | Comments (27)