Kansas Medicaid Expansion: Read the fine print

You don’t have to go around the block too many times to figure out when some company says it’s announcing a “rate adjustment” that you – the customer – are going to be paying more. It may be buried in the fine print, but it’s there.

The same goes for a term Governor Laura Kelly and some Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) in the Kansas Legislature are hoping you’ll warm up to next year called “Medicaid Expansion.” They’re going to be selling it to you and to your state senators and representatives really hard come the new session of the legislature in January, and hoping you don’t read the fine print.

If you’ve read up on the “expansion” you probably already have it pegged. If you’re in favor of it, you’re probably also in favor of Bernie Sanders’ free college for everyone and free health care for illegal immigrants and all kinds of other free stuff that “somebody else” will pay for.

If you’re against it, you probably think adding 130,000 able-bodied people who presently make too much money to qualify to the list of people who get free health benefits seems unwarranted, and you’ve probably figured out the $50 million it’s going to cost the state in the first year is going to come at least to some extent out of your pocket.

What you probably have not seen in that small print is a reminder of what Governor Kelly has already taken from you if you’re a worker or a small business person, or if you own a corporation that pays taxes in Kansas.

For starters, Governor Kelly decided she and state government were entitled to a nice tax refund you were supposed to get when President Trump cut your federal income tax in 2018. That means $190 million of our hard-earned dollars should have been refunded to us from the state which we could have used to buy a car or remodel our kitchen or pay tuition or go to McDonalds. But, Governor Kelly opted to keep it.

Then Kelly approved a 9 percent hike in state spending for 2019, and vetoed a bill that would have reduced our taxes even though the state is churning in millions of dollars in revenues above budget estimates – courtesy of the largest tax increase in state history legislators approved in 2017. Then to lower the heat from the Kansas Supreme Court, Kelly and legislators increased school spending $500 million in 2018 and added another $90 million in icing for the educational cake last spring.

So if you’re concerned about another $50 million in state spending to add able-bodied people to Medicaid, who can blame you?

Another issue in the small print of Medicaid Expansion is for the deserving people already on it. Will the new money from the federal government and that $50 million from Kansas be enough to cover 130,000 new people as well as those who already qualify? Other states that expanded Medicaid found an extra 50 to 100 percent more new enrollees than their initial estimates. That means Kansas could be adding 260,000 to 300,000 new recipients at a cost of a billion dollars per year, and $100 million in extra cost to Kansas tax payers.     

Maybe “someone else” will pay those costs so we can have it all for free? Then again, maybe not.

Kelly and those legislators need to focus on job growth and strengthening the state’s economy so Kansas workers can provide for themselves and their families, instead of adding new people to the public dole. Kansans have paid enough extra tax bills lately. That’s a message no fine print can hide.

– Dane Hicks is the publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan. 

Feminists abandon women athletes to back transgender trophy thieves

Forget burning your bras, marching for equal pay and smashing the glass ceiling – the next feminist revolution will be defined in the fight over boys identifying as girls stealing awards and accolades from women in sports.


It’s going to fracture the modern feminist movement and can be wrapped up in one declaration: it has to be Trump’s fault.

This time it’s an implosion that would confound even someone who identifies as Gloria Steinem. In the debate over transgenders and athletics, traditional feminism is going to have choose between women, whom it has tried for decades to convince they should rise up and take what they’re due from us “Y” chromosome Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals themselves who have decided they’re entitled to women’s sports championships because they identify as girls.

So far in that argument, feminism is siding with the boys. Well, sort of...

The issue revolves around high school and college female athletes who’ve worked for years to acquire their best athletic marks, primarily in track and field, worthy of scholarship hopes and collegiate championships – only to be bested by the recent introduction of male athletes into their sports who identify as females and are allowed to compete against women according to laws in 19 states. The result has been, as one can imagine, lopsided.

In a Connecticut case, two males now hold 15 women’s high school state track championship titles that were once held by girls. Some girls have been bumped out of regional finishes that would have sent them on their way to compete for state titles and the attention from collegiate scouts which comes with that.

In some cases college scholarships are at stake. In that sense, competition from biological males competing against them may in some instances be stopping women from getting an education. But women’s rights groups and the ACLU in Connecticut and elsewhere have sided with the boys, calling the girls’ concerns “unfounded fears” in one response in The Nutmeg State.

The inarguable unfairness of the issue transcends the fickleness of modern social justice warriors who've so nobly embraced LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) communities because, in the world of science, facts know no social objective. Apples are always apples, oranges are always oranges, and only vaginas are vaginas.

Consider a 1993 study by the National Institutes of Health on strength and muscle characteristic comparisons between men and women. Research showed women on average possessed only 52 percent of men’s upper body strength, and only 66 percent of a man’s strength in the lower body. The difference was generally due to men having larger muscle fibers and higher proportion of lean tissue in the upper body. This is historically why men, in general, look like men and women, in general, look like women – a definition which used to actually matter in determining which was which.

Simply put, even men who’ve had their genitals removed and undergone hormone therapy to sound and appear more female can’t rewrite the programming in their muscle tissue, the density of their bones and the better leverage allowed by longer bones and better muscle connections. Hence, the world pole vault record for women is just over 16 feet; the record for men just over 20 feet – at least for now.

But the issue confronting the girls in the Connecticut lawsuit and in the other 18 states that allow this ludicrousy has to do more with political correctness on steroids than physical performances.

Those women who have earned their stripes and their right to compete through physical and mental work most of us can't even fathom have been abandoned by modern feminists who now pursue progressive society’s higher social justice goals: the canonizing and mainstreaming of sexual oddity.

 In this bizarro reality, everybody gets a trophy except the girls who’ve earned them. Those girls may eventually choose to throw their support behind people and organizations that have their interests more at heart. ###
–Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan.

Looking for video editor & advertising sales person

Video Editor – Garnett Publishing, Inc., is in search of a digital video nerd who can edit raw footage and collaborate on projects within our newly launched video production department. You'll make suggestions and render technical assistance on short advertising videos for our clients destined for their social media, websites, etc. Pay is on project (contract) basis. You don't need to have worked in this field before, but you do need to know your way around video editing. Send letter of introduction outlining your interest and experience to publisher Dane Hicks at dhicks@garnett-ks.com.

Advertising/Media Sales – Garnett Publishing, Inc., publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett and The Trading Post in Lawrence, is looking for a part-time (20-30 hrs/week) salesperson to work with clients in their purchases of advertising, video, social media and other media products we offer. Flexible morning & afternoon hours, paid vacations and holidays. Good hourly wage plus bonuses on special projects. All training provided. Applicants should have polished, professional demeanor and computer/smartphone functionality. To apply or for more information send resume and short intro letter to publisher Dane Hicks at dhicks@garnett-ks.com

Secret hearings? Where's the press?

From all the crowing journalists do about busting the occasional secret meetings of their school boards, city zoning organizations or county commissions, you’d think they’d be going full-on Watergate-Iran/Contra-Colonel Sanders’- secret-recipe-hair-on-fire about the closed-door impeachment hearings being held by Democrats in the U.S. Congress.

But oddly, not a peep. 

There’s been a v-e-r-y rare  silence from Jim Acosta; Wolf Blitzer must be tied up watching re-runs of the first night of the bombing of Baghdad in the first Gulf War; George Stephanopoulos is apparently busy buying himself another vowel.

No, us righteous wranglers of the Fourth Estate, otherwise so bent on going to extremes to protect the people’s right to know, are standing mute these past weeks about the historic abuse of power by Democrats who control the U.S. Congress. Even among a national press corps so demonstrably biased as the American mainstream media has been since the election of President Donald Trump, one would think the conduct of secret hearings to impeach a sitting U.S. president would raise just a thimble full of anxiety from journalists typically so aghast at governmental secrecy.

After all, these Star Chamber-style hearings of subpoenaed witnesses, conducted by Democrats in the House Intelligence Committee specifically so they can be done in secret (the HIC typically hears information on issues of national security), provide perfect fodder for accusations of abuse of power. Before Donald Trump became president, that used to be one of conventional journalism’s favorite and most justified targets.

         In the grand old days of impeachment hearings aimed at Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, a vote in the House declared the body’s intent to formally launch an impeachment effort and those proceedings were held publicly in the House Judiciary Committee. House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in an unprecedented move that there will be no House vote, providing cover to Democrat congressmen concerned about their prospects for re-election in 2020, so they can remain off the radar of constituents. The move toward secrecy and away from public scrutiny also further silences House Republicans who would be allowed to debate the issues in public. Because Pelosi and Democrats control the House, Republicans aren’t even allowed to subpoena witnesses in the secret hearings.

         Imagine for a minute if the investigation into the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., had been conducted by a secret panel. What if members of congress closed the door on testimony by Big Tobacco executives back in the 1990s, or on Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings? Would the American press corps have mustered up an editorial opinion if those proceedings had been covered up and kept from public view?

         No matter your opinion of Donald Trump, when a handful of congressmen have the power to attempt to threaten a legally elected president with impeachment and keep the record, testimony and witnesses secret from the American public – that ought to scare the hell out of you….unless you’re Joseph Stalin.

         But then again all the floodlights from the past three years have been shining this direction since Trump’s election win in November 2016. Democrats swore to impeach him before he even took office and have made numerous attempts with the help of a complicit mainstream media – Stormy Daniels, The Russians, Comey-gate, Mueller-gate, The Wall, Travel Ban just to name a few. Each week brings a new attack, and the mainstream press has never tired of its role as ally and collaborator, regardless of the number of failed attempts made.

         Perhaps there’s an opinion to be rendered about a party bent on nothing short of a coup of a sitting, legally-elected American president? It’s another perspective the American press is entitled to ignore, and there’s no secret about that.
-Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan.

        

Kelly rocks the “free money” tour

ANALYSIS – Fresh from pick-pocketing our $190 million federal income tax refund with her veto of SB 22, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and Lt. Governor Lynn Rogers last week barnstormed Kansas like a 2019 version of a Motley Crue tour, belting out the praises of obsolete Obamacare Medicaid expansion and partying hard on the promise of bigger, richer government.

But unlike when The Crue buzz-sawed through Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan that spring of 1990, this time you’re not going to have a choice whether or not to buy a ticket. In fact, Medicaid expansion – which raises the poverty line so some 150,000 additional able-bodied, childless adults can qualify for publicly-funded benefits, will complete Kelly’s tax-hike trifecta when combined with your federal tax refund dollars and that $90 million for new school funding approved in recent weeks.

For the Democrat Governor, Democrats in the Legislature and Democrats masquerading as Republicans who support that raucous spending, the early months of the Governor’s term has been like one great big backstage party. But the hangover’s coming.

With Medicaid specifically, no one’s yet answered what becomes of poor, legitimately needy people after the program expands to include adults who are 38 percent (italic) over (end italic) the present poverty line? Can the needs of people at the bottom of the scale still be served once we include 150,000 additional people who previously made too much money to qualify?

         In this way, Kelly’s love affair with Obamacare is a major reset in the way Medicaid used to be viewed in Kansas; from the old concept of providing healthcare for people who can’t provide for themselves, to providing it for those who are able to work and find other options on their own.

         And the extra head count is just the beginning. States which have jumped on the “free government money” bandwagon of Obamacare found new enrollees actually numbered an additional 50 to 100 percent more than the initial estimates foretold. That means Kansas’ new 150,000 enrollees could possibly be 260,000 to 300,000, with total costs as high as $1 billion per year. Even with your federal taxes and deficit spending going to pay for Obamacare’s offer to pay 90 percent of a Medicaid expansion, that still leaves Kansas on the hook for a cool $100 million in additional real cash spending – every year.

         Where’s that extra Kansas tax money going to come from?

         To help with the political and financial baggage of Medicaid expansion, Kelly joins the Kansas Hospital Association on the chorus that more Medicaid dollars will save your local hospital. Granted, Medicaid expansion might add a little revenue for Kansas hospitals, but certainly not enough to fix what ails them.

Kansas’ rural hospitals aren’t struggling because of too little Medicaid funding. They’re struggling because their margins are thinner than their urban cousins, and because the Kansas economy is weak – just ask any small businessperson in the state who’s trying to scratch out a living outside of Johnson or Sedgwick counties.

The flow of money in our state is still heavily impacted by low oil prices and by low farm commodity prices. Also, we hemorrhage population – college graduates and productive, working-age families with good incomes and private-pay health insurance leave the state in droves for greener pastures, taking their health care dollars with them. Couple that with higher taxes already wrought upon us by ever-increasing school funding and a federal tax refund that should have been ours and not state government’s, and it gets easy to tell why our hospitals struggle for enough business to remain open.

If our governor had a modicum of the initiative it takes the average concert goer to rush the floor barricades and make it to the front of the stage, we’d already have a better option than another “easy money” government program. The best Kelly can do is keep us in the nose bleed section.

– Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan.

Et tu, Jerry?

In Kansas Senator Jerry Moran’s world, Washington, D.C., is a constructive, intuitive place where everyone has logical, common goals unfettered by unseemly influence or ulterior motives; a place where divisions between Democrats and Republicans are readily bandaged with a kind word and a solid Howard Cunningham-style pep talk; a place where the sun rises with hope each day and the Cleveland Browns have a chance to win a Super Bowl.

Other Republicans look out upon a national battle map where our representatives are engaged in a cold war between the struggling Democratic Republic and the emerging old-style Socialism being embraced by Democrats. They see they things differently.

For the Kansas Republicans who twice elected Moran to the U.S. Senate and recoiled in disgust last week when the Senator announced he would support a resolution against President Trump’s border wall emergency declaration, the betrayal is one of Shakespearian proportion. Few Republicans view the situation at the nation’s border with Mexico as anything less than an immediate national emergency, either from the standpoint of the human tragedy befalling the illegal immigrants attempting to make the trip through Central America and Mexico, or from the standpoint of a flat-out invasion of undocumented freeloaders into our debt-plagued country.

But Moran’s betrayal of the Trump agenda didn’t just begin here. Moran has spent much time already wringing his hands over this rogue, activist presidency. Moran’s button-down white shirt and red tie institutionalism has squirmed in discomfort as Trump brazenly slugged it out with the Socialist hoards in both houses led by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Occasional Cortex. Moran can’t understand why we all can’t just get along – why adult legislators can’t act like adults, come to a compromise, and work together. The president and most of the country, however, have given up expecting choruses of kumbaya.

The senator may not remember the president’s efforts at negotiation with House and Senate Democratic leadership over the weeks leading up to and including the December/January government shutdown. Trump wisely capitulated in order to put federal workers back on their jobs and re-fire the colossal engines of federal finance. Then he made fresh offers to advance discussions with Democrat leaders anew – and was flatly refused yet again.

And perhaps Moran hasn’t been watching the agonizing ironies besetting his Democrat colleagues. On one hand they have to keep Trump from gaining a win of any kind that might help in the 2020 election; on the other they have to try to stop the leftward stampede of their party toward bona fide Socialism so as to not alienate legions of centrist voters and stampede them into the Republicans’ welcoming ranks. Pelosi and Schumer are fighting a battle on two fronts, and they're losing.

Just as disappointing was Moran's melba toast manifesto explaining his betrayal. In an 18-point excuse released after the announcement, Moran claimed the 1977 law passed by Congress that allows Presidential Emergency Orders is unconstitutional and should be appealed or amended. He says he supports better border security, (but…). He said there are yet other ways for the president to fund the construction of the wall. He said he’s always been opposed to the overreach of presidential powers even under President Obama. It’s a matter of conscience, and sets the precedent for abuse of power from presidents to come, Moran argues.

Such noble foresight, but one wonders how many illegal immigrants and their children signed contracts in blood with ruthless Coyotes to cross the border while Moran penned his law professor’s lecture response? Or how many criminal illegals sold drugs or staffed the armies of Los Angeles gang bangers? Or how many bought Social Security numbers stolen from native-born American children to establish their bogus identities? Moran's treatise on his own lack of leadership is like debating the virtue of fluoride in public water with the firemen who’ve come to extinguish your blazing house.

The expectation is that Trump will veto the measure, and opponents lack the votes to overturn that veto. If so, the wall may become secondary to Kansas Republicans, who will then assess Moran’s betrayal of trust and whether he has a future as a Kansas Senator.

– Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review, a weekly community newspaper in Garnett, Kan., winner of The Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award.

Kansas hemp license fees keep state's farmers out of new, lucrative crop

   Although farmers in multiple states will be making money this year on their first legal industrial hemp crop in 80 years, the Kansas Department of Agriculture has set its "research" license and fee structure so exorbitantly high the practical effect will be to keep Kansas farmers out of the industry – again.

   These jacked-up fees – over $1,200 for initial state paperwork before a farmer ever even scuffs his boots in the dirt for a hem[ crop – appear aimed at discouraging Kansans from dipping a toe in the water of what will soon be a thriving option for crop rotations and a potentially lucrative addition to various Kansas agriculture revenue streams. With its fees so high, it's hard to imagine why KDOA wasn't more excited when the Kansas hemp bill was debated two years ago in the legislature. At double the fees other states charge, KDOA should have been able to muster a little better than a "neutral" position on the bill when it was debated by legislators.

   Here's the way this shakedown shakes out: for a crop which has no intoxicant, narcotic or psychoactive potential, the Kansas Department of Agriculture intends to pop each applicant (whether grower, distributor, processor, etc.) a $47 fingerprint fee. Since industrial hemp is no more a threat to your senses than corn, we have to wonder if a fingerprint fee will be required to grow corn next year as well?

   From there we move to a basic application fee – $200 into the KDOA coffers just to fill out the form. This is twice the $100 fee charged by states like Kentucky, which actually want to encourage the crop.

   Now that the state has your fingerprints, your phone number, your social security number and presumably knows where to send your mail, you have to pay an extra $1,000 for the grower's license. Yep, a thousand clams.

   If you want to get into the business end of industrial hemp and operate in Kansas, a distributor license is going to set you back $2,000 before you even buy a single paper clip. If you want to invest in the Kansas economy with your own money for specialized equipment and a facility to become a processor of hemp fiber or grain – that's a cool $3,000 for the privilege of doing it in Kansas. And if you want to process the high-end floral presses that squeeze out that expensive hemp oil – Kansas is going to stick you for $6,000.

   By comparison, Kansas makers of the demon alcohol skate by on the cheap. For a farm winery – up and running lock, stock and barrel for $500; farm winery outlet to sell your own hootch, just an extra $100; want to package and sell your own product from your microbrewery? Check your sofa cushions for a measily $200. Now, nobody's ever gotten intoxicated on industrial hemp because it's like getting intoxicated on alfalfa. And please note: these alcohol license fees, designed to "encourage" wineries and the brewing arts apparently for tourism sake, are for two years, not just one.

   In fairness some, but not many, states have higher license fees associated with their hemp "research" programs than the Sunflower state. Not many, however, are foisting those bureaucratic junk fees on farmers who've been losing money on $3.70 corn and wrestling with soybean prices under $8.50 per bushel in recent years. In Vermont, where they grow mostly sweet corn, potatoes and apples, the license fee last year for a 100 acre industrial hemp plot was $25.

         Considering Kansas' continual low finish in the nation's economic growth rankings, we have to wonder how many times in the past 100 years we've looked squarely at solid opportunities – but been unable to get out of our own way in order to realize them? Unfortunately, industrial hemp may be the next one.        ###

-Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan.

Former KC weather man to speak on wind farms at Thursday meeting in Mound City

MOUND CITY, Kan. –  Former Kansas City Fox 4 weatherman Mike Thompson who now advocates for community groups trying to fight industrial wind farms, will bring the science and politics of massive wind turbine fields to light in a special presentation, Thursday, March 7, at the Linn County Fairgrounds in Mound City.

         The event is hosted by Concerned Citizens of Linn County, Kansas, which is engaged in opposition to a proposed 30,000 acre wind farm near Mound City to be built by the German-based E.ON Corporation. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the 4H Building on the fairgrounds.

         Thompson, a native of Burlington, said his presentation is based off his years of study and a hard look at the scientific irregularities that pervade the wind industry.

         “Basically it’s a fairly comprehensive look at how wind power is very problematic from a number of standpoints,” Thompson said. “What I speak about is the inefficiencies of wind power and how much more our electrical bills are each year as a result of the increasing number of wind farms going up.”

         Thompson was a member of the Kansas City television media for decades and was the meteorologist and on-air weatherman at Fox 4 Kansas City from 1992 until he retired in a contract buy-out last December.

         Thompson said federal subsidies to wind farms had hurt base power plants by driving down the wholesale price of electricity when it floods the grid with unneeded power. That forces rate increases to customers because companies still have to pay for the consistent, base power production we all rely on.

         The event is free and the public is invited to attend. Any schedule changes will be posted at the CCLC’s Facebook page. Contact David Fisher with questions at (913)226-8284.

Wait-a-minute Governor Kelly – That's OUR money

EDITORIAL – Thank you to Republicans in the Kansas Senate for reminding Governor Laura Kelly and Democrats in the Legislature that it is our money, after all.

Recently the Senate voted 25-14 to approve a bill that streamlines Kansas tax law with 2017 federal tax changes instituted as a part of President Trump's economic stimulus package. The change in Kansas would put $190 million in tax payments back into the hands of the corporations and individuals that paid it in –  and who will, in turn, spend it, save it or reinvest it.

It doesn't really matter what we do with it – it was our money from the start.

But Democrats in the governor's office and the legislature are miffed. They were hoping the taxpayers who paid that money in would just forget all about it and make it fodder for Governor Kelly's upcoming spending spree – buckets of additional tax money headed toward even more expensive state education finance, expansion of state Medicaid to able-bodied adults earning incomes at 138 percent of the poverty line, etc. Kelly's Christmas list is going to be expensive, and it will require another tax increase in addition to the one in 2017 (the largest in state history)  even if she got to keep our federal refund. Unless, of course, Republicans in the Legislature throttle back her drunken sailor spending plans.

It's easy for folks in government to develop the idea that the tax money collected from us is just some nebulous mass that's always been in state coffers and always will be. Whether you raise taxes or whether you just refuse to give back what is due doesnít matter – the idea is pervasive that it's money that really belongs to the government and never belonged to hard-working people trying to make their own living.

 Of course, that's simply not true.

It is the earning power of individual taxpayers and of the companies we build and manage that provides those funds for government. Socialists now gaining ground in the modern political arena and who are electing Democrats to execute their policies would prefer the government got our paychecks first, and then in their generosity decided how much of our own pay we should get to put in our pockets.

The problem that Socialists don't understand is that without a vibrant, free economy there's no income to tax, hence no funding for government to spend. Once oil-rich Venezuela, where Socialism was so gleefully embraced years ago and where the starving population is now eating its pets and zoo animals due to economic collapse, is a prime example. Graft and cronyism and waste thrive in government when there's an unending supply of other people's money.

The Trump philosophy that pulled the gag off that $190 million in hostage tax money is the same philosophy that has hitched a rocket to the national economy. Unemployment is down, notably among minorities and women, jobs are being created faster than they can be filled, companies are re-tooling for American production and consumer confidence is zooming.

And as far as we know nobody's eating dog, unless that's just how they roll.

But these profitable lessons in solid economic theory won't convince Governor Kelly and Kansas Democrats to turn that money back over to Kansas workers and let them plug it into the state's economy the way they see fit. Kelly most likely will veto the measure when it hits her desk, and put the squeeze on Republicans to count up enough votes to try to override her veto.

But Kelly needs to be wary in coveting money that belongs to so many Kansans.

She won the governor's seat only because latte-sipping liberals in Johnson County, where 22 percent of the state's registered voters reside, wanted to heel and hide Kris Kobach to a barn door for being a conservative. Conservatives, however, gained seats in the House and Senate across the rest of the state.

Kelly should return that tax refund because it's the right thing to do. Lacking that vision, she should do the math in the Legislature and imagine, as she lusts after money that's not her's, just how rough Republicans might make her next four years. 

– Dane Hicks is publisher of The Anderson County Review in Garnett, Kan.