BARTON COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on drug and other charges after a traffic stop

Just after 5p.m. July 17, a police officer conducted a traffic stop in the 2700 block of 10th Street in Great Bend for an equipment violation on a 2006 Hyundai Elantra, according to a media release from police.

During the stop, Police Service Dog, Menta was deployed and conducted a free air sniff around the exterior of the vehicle and indicated to the presence of illegal narcotics. 

A search of the vehicle was conducted, and an amount of controlled substances including marijuana, methamphetamine, and drug paraphernalia were located. 

Police arrested 23-year-old Sabrina Carr and 21-year-old Joshua Carey and transported to the Barton County Jail.

Carr also provided a false name and was booked for interference with law enforcement.&nbsp; Both Carr and Carey were booked on multiple outstanding warrants.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595447931069.png" alt="Carey photo Barton Co." />
 <figcaption>Carey photo Barton Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>BARTON COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspects on drug and other charges after a traffic stopJust after 5p.m. July 17, a police officer conducted a traffic stop in the 2700 block of 10th Street in Great Bend for an equipment violation on a 2006 Hyundai Elantra, according to a media release from police.During the stop, Police Service Dog, Menta was deployed and conducted a free air sniff around the exterior of the vehicle and indicated to the presence of illegal narcotics. A search of the vehicle was conducted, and an amount of controlled substances including marijuana, methamphetamine, and drug paraphernalia were located. <figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595447889863.png" alt="Carr-photo Barton Co." />
 <figcaption>Carr-photo Barton Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>Police arrested 23-year-old Sabrina Carr and 21-year-old Joshua Carey and transported to the Barton County Jail.Carr also provided a false name and was booked for interference with law enforcement.&nbsp; Both Carr and Carey were booked on multiple outstanding warrants.&nbsp;

Kansas woman gave police fake name during traffic stop

By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2020/07/21/gov-laura-kelly-shields-core-government-services-as-covid-19-rocks-kansas-economy/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — Democratic Gov. 
Laura Kelly said the Kansas economy’s emergence from COVID-19 depends on
 sober responses to the public health nightmare, record unemployment and
 inevitable declines in tax revenue.

She said the answer wasn’t
 to recklessly throw open doors to business activity nor starve core 
state government services, such as education or transportation. That was
 the strategy of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback after implementing massive 
income tax cuts in 2012 that failed to deliver promised job expansion 
but was blamed for years of revenue shortfalls, budget problems and 
lackluster economic growth.

“I’m trying to avoid that 
as much as possible because this will end, you know, and I want us to be
 positioned as best as possible,” Kelly said on the Kansas Reflector 
podcast. “There’s no doubt that deep cuts to our economic drivers would 
not only stall us out but send us backwards.”

In her initial round of 
budget adjustments necessitated by an estimated two-year, $1.2 billion 
pandemic-inspired budget crater, the governor said her intent was to 
shield education, transportation and health sectors of state government.
 She said the situation reinforced her belief that it was wise to veto 
two tax-cut bills in 2019, because holding that cash in reserve helped 
cover about $600 million of the problem. The governor recommended the 
state rely on delayed payment on debts, use of federal COVID funding and
 a series of one-time cuts to balance the current fiscal year’s budget.

The governor also 
appointed a task force to guide distribution to cities, counties and 
businesses of more than $1 billion in federal aid tied to the pandemic. 
The idea is to cover local government expenditures on COVID-19 and 
transition to public-private partnerships designed to address ongoing 
health challenges.

New eco-devo plan 
David Toland, secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce, joined 
Kelly on the podcast and said the state’s economic challenges ought not 
be underestimated. There’s no question, he said, there’s a lot of Kansas
 families who are suffering and that certain business sectors have been 
hit hard by the pandemic.

“The first thing we have 
to do is be clear-eyed about the economic realities that we’re facing 
right now,” Toland said. “One of those is that some of the jobs that 
have disappeared are gone forever.”

He said the commerce 
department was nearly finished with crafting the state’s first 
comprehensive economic development plan in more than 30 years. The 
Framework for Growth will make the case Kansas must focus on developing 
personnel talent, expansion of broadband services and opportunities to 
invest in businesses engaged in advanced manufacturing, animal health, 
and logistics and distribution.

The economic plan has been
 modified due to the pandemic, Toland said. The virus’ impact on 
business illustrated the value of having flexible manufacturers, 
especially in the health sector, capable of pivoting to emerging demand 
for goods required by COVID-19. The state also should plow deeper into 
potential growth of e-commerce throughout the state, he said. It’s 
important to take advantage of Kansas’ central location and highway 
network to bolster logistics and distribution operations, he said.

The COVID-19 scourge has 
so far infected 22,000 and killed 300 in Kansas, based on reports from 
the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Testing has revealed 
COVID-19 cases in 102 of the state’s 105 counties, but three-fourths are
 concentrated in a dozen counties.

Kelly said the Kansas 
Department of Labor’s antiquated computer network failed to handle the 
rapid surge of more than 200,000 new filers for unemployment and led to 
significant delays in processing claims.

Labor Secretary Delia 
Garcia resigned in June after millions of dollars in duplicate payments 
were mistakenly sent to jobless Kansans. The consulting firm Accenture 
was hired by the governor to help the labor department improve training 
of call-center employees and speed response times. An automated element 
added to the mix featured the robotic “Amelia” answering frequently 
asked questions about unemployment benefits.

“We’re working very, very 
hard on that,” the governor said. “I do want to say that with … all the 
problems that we’ve had, we still have been taking care of over 200,000 
Kansans and pushed out over $1.2 billion in unemployment benefits 
throughout the state. It’s been wild and crazy.”

House Speaker Ron Ryckman,
 an Olathe Republican, said the governor ought to reconsider her veto of
 legislation that would have earmarked $60 million in idle state funds 
for loans to small businesses and of a scholarship program designed to 
help Kansans enroll in technical skill college programs with workplace 
demand.

He said careful 
implementation of the state’s new highway construction program should be
 a key force in economic development for years.

The Kansas House formed a 
special committee to complete by January a set of policy and program 
recommendations for the state’s economic recovery from COVID-19. It will
 examine taxation, business financing, regulatory issues and operations 
at the state departments of commerce and labor, he said.

“There’s a lot of work to 
be done to make sure the Kansas economy rebounds post-COVID at a pace 
that keeps the doors open for our local businesses and ag producers,” 
said Rep. Blaine Finch, R-Ottawa. “This allows us to … identify where 
the gaps are and to make sure the federal stimulus dollars coming to 
Kansas are being used to jumpstart the economy.”

House Minority Leader Tom 
Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said recovery from the pandemic would be 
aided by retention of the 26-week unemployment benefit that was passed 
this year as the virus spread across the country. He said state 
lawmakers should reduce the 6.5 percent sales tax on groceries to help 
families purchase essentials.

A $5 million business loan
 program operated by the state commerce department should be expanded 
after applications outstripped available cash, Sawyer said.

“The money went really fast. Reopening something like that will open up money for small businesses,” Sawyer said.

Chandler Burrows, a 
Republican from Rolla who is running against incumbent Republican Rep. 
Marty Long in the most southwestern district of Kansas, said the state’s
 economy has been “severely mismanaged for several decades.” Because of 
the pandemic, the state is facing a massive unemployment problem, 
Burrows said, and Kelly’s response has been “low intensity.”

He proposed abandoning the
 fiscal responsibility of a balanced budget and instead take on more 
debt — like a big corporation might do — to invest in the state’s 
future. During a recession, he said, government needs to address 
unemployment, make sure businesses don’t shut their doors and make sure 
people don’t lose their homes.

“I’m talking about either 
assisting private businesses with helping people get back to work or a 
public works program,” Burrows said, “and you know there’s a lot of work
 that needs to be done in our state — making sure there’s high speed 
internet for every county in Kansas, basic maintenance stuff, 
beautification projects that we could put people back to work on. Not on
 a permanent basis, but until the economy’s in good enough shape where 
the private sector can pick up the rest of that slack.”

He is concerned his fellow Republicans will pursue another option during next year’s legislative session.

“There’s an alternate 
theory on how to handle the recession, which is pretty much just let the
 recovery take its course,” Burrows said. “And that sort of aligns more 
into the orthodox Republicans ideas. I just think that if we actually do
 something like that, it will be an absolute disaster for our state. We 
can’t afford to let the recession take its course. We need to actively 
intervene and do some hands-on management of the economy to get us 
through the situation.”

Kelly was denounced by 
Republican lawmakers for being the first governor to order an end to 
in-person K-12 school instruction in March. She was criticized for a 
statewide stay-at-home order also implemented to slow spread of 
COVID-19, which skeptics claimed unnecessarily contributed to economic 
disruption as “nonessential” workers were prevented from working. Her 
order to limit mass gatherings in churches was challenged in court.

The governor said she 
appreciated the weight of her decisions on 3 million Kansans, but was 
unapologetic about her desire to put public health above other 
considerations.

“Whenever you’re making 
decisions that impact everybody’s life, it’s huge. So we, from the very 
beginning, decided to rely on science and our public health experts to 
help guide us through this,” Kelly said.

She said the Legislature 
made some “very bad decisions” that handcuffed her ability to fight the 
spread of COVID-19. The onus of those decisions was eventually 
transferred to county health officials and county commissioners. Since 
that transition, the number of positive COVID-19 cases has escalated.

She said 14 years as a Topeka state senator helped her develop a thick skin to second guessing of decisions.

“I’m also the mother of 
two girls,” the governor said. “I’m used to a lot of back talk and have 
figured out how to deal with that over the years.”

Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595447686752.png" alt="Gov. Laura Kelly prepares for a podcast recording at Kansas Reflector's office. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Gov. Laura Kelly prepares for a podcast recording at Kansas Reflector's office. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2020/07/21/gov-laura-kelly-shields-core-government-services-as-covid-19-rocks-kansas-economy/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA — Democratic Gov. 
Laura Kelly said the Kansas economy’s emergence from COVID-19 depends on
 sober responses to the public health nightmare, record unemployment and
 inevitable declines in tax revenue.She said the answer wasn’t
 to recklessly throw open doors to business activity nor starve core 
state government services, such as education or transportation. That was
 the strategy of GOP Gov. Sam Brownback after implementing massive 
income tax cuts in 2012 that failed to deliver promised job expansion 
but was blamed for years of revenue shortfalls, budget problems and 
lackluster economic growth.“I’m trying to avoid that 
as much as possible because this will end, you know, and I want us to be
 positioned as best as possible,” Kelly said on the Kansas Reflector 
podcast. “There’s no doubt that deep cuts to our economic drivers would 
not only stall us out but send us backwards.”<div><iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/859117765&color=%232b7fb4&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe><div style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/kansas-reflector-podcast" title="Reflector Podcast" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Reflector Podcast</a> · <a href="https://soundcloud.com/kansas-reflector-podcast/kansas-gov-laura-kelly-commerce-secretary-david-tolland-plan-recovery-from-covid-19" title="Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, commerce secretary David Tolland plan recovery from COVID-19" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;">Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, commerce secretary David Tolland plan recovery from COVID-19</a></div></div>In her initial round of 
budget adjustments necessitated by an estimated two-year, $1.2 billion 
pandemic-inspired budget crater, the governor said her intent was to 
shield education, transportation and health sectors of state government.
 She said the situation reinforced her belief that it was wise to veto 
two tax-cut bills in 2019, because holding that cash in reserve helped 
cover about $600 million of the problem. The governor recommended the 
state rely on delayed payment on debts, use of federal COVID funding and
 a series of one-time cuts to balance the current fiscal year’s budget.The governor also 
appointed a task force to guide distribution to cities, counties and 
businesses of more than $1 billion in federal aid tied to the pandemic. 
The idea is to cover local government expenditures on COVID-19 and 
transition to public-private partnerships designed to address ongoing 
health challenges.New eco-devo plan 
David Toland, secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce, joined 
Kelly on the podcast and said the state’s economic challenges ought not 
be underestimated. There’s no question, he said, there’s a lot of Kansas
 families who are suffering and that certain business sectors have been 
hit hard by the pandemic.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595447806480.jpeg" alt="Kansas Secretary of Commerce David Toland says during the Kansas Reflector podcast the state’s economy is hurting from the COVID-19 pandemic and must invest in job growth in advanced manufacturing, animal health, logistics and distribution, and broadband services to bolster the economy. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Kansas Secretary of Commerce David Toland says during the Kansas Reflector podcast the state’s economy is hurting from the COVID-19 pandemic and must invest in job growth in advanced manufacturing, animal health, logistics and distribution, and broadband services to bolster the economy. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>“The first thing we have 
to do is be clear-eyed about the economic realities that we’re facing 
right now,” Toland said. “One of those is that some of the jobs that 
have disappeared are gone forever.”He said the commerce 
department was nearly finished with crafting the state’s first 
comprehensive economic development plan in more than 30 years. The 
Framework for Growth will make the case Kansas must focus on developing 
personnel talent, expansion of broadband services and opportunities to 
invest in businesses engaged in advanced manufacturing, animal health, 
and logistics and distribution.The economic plan has been
 modified due to the pandemic, Toland said. The virus’ impact on 
business illustrated the value of having flexible manufacturers, 
especially in the health sector, capable of pivoting to emerging demand 
for goods required by COVID-19. The state also should plow deeper into 
potential growth of e-commerce throughout the state, he said. It’s 
important to take advantage of Kansas’ central location and highway 
network to bolster logistics and distribution operations, he said.The COVID-19 scourge has 
so far infected 22,000 and killed 300 in Kansas, based on reports from 
the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Testing has revealed 
COVID-19 cases in 102 of the state’s 105 counties, but three-fourths are
 concentrated in a dozen counties.Kelly said the Kansas 
Department of Labor’s antiquated computer network failed to handle the 
rapid surge of more than 200,000 new filers for unemployment and led to 
significant delays in processing claims.Labor Secretary Delia 
Garcia resigned in June after millions of dollars in duplicate payments 
were mistakenly sent to jobless Kansans. The consulting firm Accenture 
was hired by the governor to help the labor department improve training 
of call-center employees and speed response times. An automated element 
added to the mix featured the robotic “Amelia” answering frequently 
asked questions about unemployment benefits.“We’re working very, very 
hard on that,” the governor said. “I do want to say that with … all the 
problems that we’ve had, we still have been taking care of over 200,000 
Kansans and pushed out over $1.2 billion in unemployment benefits 
throughout the state. It’s been wild and crazy.”Other ideasHouse Speaker Ron Ryckman,
 an Olathe Republican, said the governor ought to reconsider her veto of
 legislation that would have earmarked $60 million in idle state funds 
for loans to small businesses and of a scholarship program designed to 
help Kansans enroll in technical skill college programs with workplace 
demand.He said careful 
implementation of the state’s new highway construction program should be
 a key force in economic development for years.The Kansas House formed a 
special committee to complete by January a set of policy and program 
recommendations for the state’s economic recovery from COVID-19. It will
 examine taxation, business financing, regulatory issues and operations 
at the state departments of commerce and labor, he said.“There’s a lot of work to 
be done to make sure the Kansas economy rebounds post-COVID at a pace 
that keeps the doors open for our local businesses and ag producers,” 
said Rep. Blaine Finch, R-Ottawa. “This allows us to … identify where 
the gaps are and to make sure the federal stimulus dollars coming to 
Kansas are being used to jumpstart the economy.”House Minority Leader Tom 
Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said recovery from the pandemic would be 
aided by retention of the 26-week unemployment benefit that was passed 
this year as the virus spread across the country. He said state 
lawmakers should reduce the 6.5 percent sales tax on groceries to help 
families purchase essentials.A $5 million business loan
 program operated by the state commerce department should be expanded 
after applications outstripped available cash, Sawyer said.“The money went really fast. Reopening something like that will open up money for small businesses,” Sawyer said.An alternativeChandler Burrows, a 
Republican from Rolla who is running against incumbent Republican Rep. 
Marty Long in the most southwestern district of Kansas, said the state’s
 economy has been “severely mismanaged for several decades.” Because of 
the pandemic, the state is facing a massive unemployment problem, 
Burrows said, and Kelly’s response has been “low intensity.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595447839321.jpeg" alt="Chandler Burrows, a Rolla resident who is running in a Republican primary race for a seat in the Kansas House, says the state needs to be more aggressive in addressing unemployment in the wake of the pandemic. (Submitted by Chandler Burrows to Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Chandler Burrows, a Rolla resident who is running in a Republican primary race for a seat in the Kansas House, says the state needs to be more aggressive in addressing unemployment in the wake of the pandemic. (Submitted by Chandler Burrows to Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>He proposed abandoning the
 fiscal responsibility of a balanced budget and instead take on more 
debt — like a big corporation might do — to invest in the state’s 
future. During a recession, he said, government needs to address 
unemployment, make sure businesses don’t shut their doors and make sure 
people don’t lose their homes.“I’m talking about either 
assisting private businesses with helping people get back to work or a 
public works program,” Burrows said, “and you know there’s a lot of work
 that needs to be done in our state — making sure there’s high speed 
internet for every county in Kansas, basic maintenance stuff, 
beautification projects that we could put people back to work on. Not on
 a permanent basis, but until the economy’s in good enough shape where 
the private sector can pick up the rest of that slack.”He is concerned his fellow Republicans will pursue another option during next year’s legislative session.“There’s an alternate 
theory on how to handle the recession, which is pretty much just let the
 recovery take its course,” Burrows said. “And that sort of aligns more 
into the orthodox Republicans ideas. I just think that if we actually do
 something like that, it will be an absolute disaster for our state. We 
can’t afford to let the recession take its course. We need to actively 
intervene and do some hands-on management of the economy to get us 
through the situation.”The criticismKelly was denounced by 
Republican lawmakers for being the first governor to order an end to 
in-person K-12 school instruction in March. She was criticized for a 
statewide stay-at-home order also implemented to slow spread of 
COVID-19, which skeptics claimed unnecessarily contributed to economic 
disruption as “nonessential” workers were prevented from working. Her 
order to limit mass gatherings in churches was challenged in court.The governor said she 
appreciated the weight of her decisions on 3 million Kansans, but was 
unapologetic about her desire to put public health above other 
considerations.“Whenever you’re making 
decisions that impact everybody’s life, it’s huge. So we, from the very 
beginning, decided to rely on science and our public health experts to 
help guide us through this,” Kelly said.She said the Legislature 
made some “very bad decisions” that handcuffed her ability to fight the 
spread of COVID-19. The onus of those decisions was eventually 
transferred to county health officials and county commissioners. Since 
that transition, the number of positive COVID-19 cases has escalated.She said 14 years as a Topeka state senator helped her develop a thick skin to second guessing of decisions.“I’m also the mother of 
two girls,” the governor said. “I’m used to a lot of back talk and have 
figured out how to deal with that over the years.”Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.&nbsp;

Kelly shields core government services as COVID-19 rocks Kan. economy

Members of the <a href="https://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/Board/Documents/2019%20Board%20Contact%20Info%20Web%20etc%20rev.pdf">Kansas State Board of Education</a> rejected the governor's proposed executive order&nbsp; to delay the reopening of public and private elementary, middle and high schools for three weeks from mid-August until Sept. 9.&nbsp;

Five members voted to support Governor Kelly's plan and five voted against it during Wednesday's special meeting held online.

Kansas law requires the state school board’s approval for a delay.&nbsp; Since there was not a majority, the motion to approve the governor's order did not pass.

<a href="https://www.ksde.org/Board/Kansas-State-Board-of-Education/Streaming-Media">Click here to watch</a>&nbsp;a replay of the meeting&nbsp;

Following the vote, Governor Kelly said in a statement from her office. "The cases of COVID-19 in Kansas are at an all-time high and continue to rise. Our decisions must be informed by public health experts not politics. This vote puts our students, faculty, their families and our economy at risk. 

I will continue to work with our school districts to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our children and ask every school district to delay the start of school.”

Below is how each of the <a href="https://www.ksde.org/Board">ten members voted.</a>

District 2 Steve Roberts, Overland Park -No

District 5 Jean Clifford, Garden City -No

The Kansas State Board of Education will conduct a Special State Board meeting Wednesday to discuss the governor's proposed executive order&nbsp; to delay the reopening of public and private elementary, middle and high schools for three weeks from mid-August until Sept. 9.

<a href="https://www.ksde.org/Board/Kansas-State-Board-of-Education/Streaming-Media">Click here to watch</a>&nbsp;the meeting that begins at 10a.m.

Kansas law requires the state school board’s approval for a delay.&nbsp;

1. Call to Order — Chairman Kathy Busch

3. Mission Statement and Pledge of Allegiance

5. Discussion of proposed Executive Order 20-58

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595435362583.png" alt="KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman (upper right) addressed the State Board of Education during Wednesday's special session." />
 <figcaption>KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman (upper right) addressed the State Board of Education during Wednesday's special session.</figcaption>
 </figure>Members of the <a href="https://www.ksde.org/Portals/0/Board/Documents/2019%20Board%20Contact%20Info%20Web%20etc%20rev.pdf">Kansas State Board of Education</a> rejected the governor's proposed executive order&nbsp; to delay the reopening of public and private elementary, middle and high schools for three weeks from mid-August until Sept. 9.&nbsp; Five members voted to support Governor Kelly's plan and five voted against it during Wednesday's special meeting held online.Kansas law requires the state school board’s approval for a delay.&nbsp; Since there was not a majority, the motion to approve the governor's order did not pass.<a href="https://www.ksde.org/Board/Kansas-State-Board-of-Education/Streaming-Media">Click here to watch</a>&nbsp;a replay of the meeting&nbsp;Following the vote, Governor Kelly said in a statement from her office. "The cases of COVID-19 in Kansas are at an all-time high and continue to rise. Our decisions must be informed by public health experts not politics. This vote puts our students, faculty, their families and our economy at risk. I will continue to work with our school districts to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our children and ask every school district to delay the start of school.”Below is how each of the <a href="https://www.ksde.org/Board">ten members voted.</a>District 1 Janet Waugh, Kansas City -YesDistrict 2 Steve Roberts, Overland Park -NoDistrict 3 Michele Dombrosky, Olathe- NoDistrict 4 Ann Mah, Topeka -YesDistrict 5 Jean Clifford, Garden City -NoDistrict 6 Deena Horst, Salina-NoDistrict 7 Ben Jones, Sterling- NoDistrict 8 Kathy Busch, Wichita-YesDistrict 9 Jim Porter, Fredonia -YesDistrict 10 Jim McNiece, Wichita-Yes---------------The Kansas State Board of Education will conduct a Special State Board meeting Wednesday to discuss the governor's proposed executive order&nbsp; to delay the reopening of public and private elementary, middle and high schools for three weeks from mid-August until Sept. 9.<a href="https://www.ksde.org/Board/Kansas-State-Board-of-Education/Streaming-Media">Click here to watch</a>&nbsp;the meeting that begins at 10a.m. Kansas law requires the state school board’s approval for a delay.&nbsp;The Board Meeting Agenda1. Call to Order — Chairman Kathy Busch2. Roll Call3. Mission Statement and Pledge of Allegiance4. Approval of Agenda5. Discussion of proposed Executive Order 20-586. Act on Resolution 2020-1 ADJOURNMENT

🎥 Kan. Board of Education rejects plan to delay start of school

By ERICA HUNZINGER <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-07-22/massage-therapist-who-worked-with-ku-womens-sports-teams-faces-more-sexual-assault-charges">Kansas News Service</a>

A man who provided massages for female athletes at University of 
Kansas for more than four years was charged this month with six more 
counts of sexually assaulting four people between 2016 and 2019.

Lawrence
 massage therapist Shawn O’Brien, 49, was charged in February with 
indecent liberties with a 9-year-old. In early March, when the charges 
were reported in the media, KU said it canceled its contracts with 
O’Brien.

On <a href="https://chancellor.ku.edu/news/2020/mar24" target="_blank">March 24</a>,
 KU said six female student-athletes had told investigators there was 
“unwarranted touching during massages.” The school also said at that 
time that O’Brien had provided free massages for students on campus 
during KU Alumni Association-sponsored finals dinners starting in 2011, 
with the last time being fall 2019. O’Brien also handed out gift cards 
that the school said “may have led to off-campus massages” at his 
business, Medissage-Kamehameha, LLC, in Lawrence.

It wasn’t clear 
from the amended charges, which Douglas County Deputy District Attorney 
David Melton filed July 14, whether the individuals are current or 
former KU students or student-athletes. The charges also don’t make 
clear whether the alleged victims were men or women.

KU didn’t 
immediately respond Wednesday to a request for information. The document
 said the alleged sexual assaults happened in Douglas County. It does 
not say whether they happened on or off campus. However, the charges 
correspond with four case numbers provided to the DA’s office by the KU 
Public Safety Office — cases that were filed March 20, according to 
records <a href="https://cityprotect.com/map/list/agencies?toDate=2020-06-20T23:59:59.999Z&amp;fromDate=2020-03-16T00:00:00.000Z&amp;pageSize=2000&amp;parentIncidentTypeIds=148,8,97,15&amp;zoomLevel=15&amp;latitude=38.95354554763392&amp;longitude=-95.25034449075551&amp;days=1,2,3,4,5,6,7&amp;startHour=0&amp;endHour=24&amp;timezone=%2B00:00&amp;relativeDate=custom" target="_blank">on CityProtect</a>.

The
 amended charges are Class A sexual battery misdemeanors for touching 
the individuals “unlawfully, and without consent … with the intent to 
arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the defendant or another.”

The
 six new counts involve four people, all of whom were between the ages 
of 19 and 23 when the alleged assaults occurred. Two allegations were a 
week apart in March 2016; one spans Sept. 1 through Oct. 31, 2018; 
another two were on the same day — Sept. 30, 2019 — and the last was on 
Oct. 14, 2019, allegedly touching one of the same individuals in the 
Sept. 30 incident.

O’Brien’s attorney, Philip Sedgwick, said 
Wednesday he had no comment about the new charges, for which a new 
warrant had not yet been issued. O’Brien is scheduled for a preliminary 
hearing on Sept. 1. If convicted, he could face up to a year in jail and
 a fine of up to $2,500 for each count.

KU contracts with O’Brien,
 obtained earlier this year through a public records request, say he 
provided massage therapy for the women’s basketball team from January 
through June 2015; for women’s tennis from July 2015 to June 2016; for 
the softball team from April to June 2017 and again from late December 
2017 through June 2018; and for the women’s soccer team from July 2017 
through June 2019.

The records request did not include contracts for beyond June 30, 2019, for any of those four sports. KU said <a href="https://chancellor.ku.edu/news/2020/mar5" target="_blank">on March 5</a> that O’Brien’s contract “has been terminated,” but didn’t specify on what date.

KU
 said in late March that an athletic trainer knew of “unwarranted and 
unwanted touching” but hadn’t appropriately reported it. The school also
 said it filed Clery Act reports — the federal law requires schools to 
track and report campus-related crimes — for the allegations it had 
found, and that an internal investigation was still ongoing.

KU didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to a request for an update on the internal investigation.

KU’s
 athletic department has dealt with a host of issues lately. The NCAA 
charged the basketball program with five of the most serious rules 
violations related to recruiting. Head coach Bill Self has disputed 
those charges. The school has also denied charges of less serious rules 
violations for the football program. Plus, the athletics department 
recently settled a lawsuit with former football coach David Beaty over 
allegations that he was fired to avoid a payout.

Other universities have faced scandals regarding medical staff and athletes, notably<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/757909245/michigan-state-university-to-pay-4-5-million-fine-over-larry-nassar-scandal" target="_blank"> Michigan State</a>,
 where a doctor who also worked for USA Gymnastics admitted sexually 
assaulting female patients for decades, and Ohio State, where a 
physician sexually abused<a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/20/former-ohio-state-doctor-abused-nearly-200-young-men-no-consequences-decades" target="_blank"> male student-athletes</a>.

Erica Hunzinger is the news editor for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ehunzinger" target="_blank">@ehunzinger</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595430473272.png" alt="Nomin Ujiyediin / Kansas News Service file photo" />
 <figcaption>Nomin Ujiyediin / Kansas News Service file photo</figcaption>
 </figure>By ERICA HUNZINGER <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-07-22/massage-therapist-who-worked-with-ku-womens-sports-teams-faces-more-sexual-assault-charges">Kansas News Service</a>A man who provided massages for female athletes at University of 
Kansas for more than four years was charged this month with six more 
counts of sexually assaulting four people between 2016 and 2019.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/3/1583523947471.png" alt="Shawn O'Brien photo Douglas County" />
 <figcaption>Shawn O'Brien photo Douglas County</figcaption>
 </figure>Lawrence
 massage therapist Shawn O’Brien, 49, was charged in February with 
indecent liberties with a 9-year-old. In early March, when the charges 
were reported in the media, KU said it canceled its contracts with 
O’Brien.On <a href="https://chancellor.ku.edu/news/2020/mar24" target="_blank">March 24</a>,
 KU said six female student-athletes had told investigators there was 
“unwarranted touching during massages.” The school also said at that 
time that O’Brien had provided free massages for students on campus 
during KU Alumni Association-sponsored finals dinners starting in 2011, 
with the last time being fall 2019. O’Brien also handed out gift cards 
that the school said “may have led to off-campus massages” at his 
business, Medissage-Kamehameha, LLC, in Lawrence.It wasn’t clear 
from the amended charges, which Douglas County Deputy District Attorney 
David Melton filed July 14, whether the individuals are current or 
former KU students or student-athletes. The charges also don’t make 
clear whether the alleged victims were men or women.KU didn’t 
immediately respond Wednesday to a request for information. The document
 said the alleged sexual assaults happened in Douglas County. It does 
not say whether they happened on or off campus. However, the charges 
correspond with four case numbers provided to the DA’s office by the KU 
Public Safety Office — cases that were filed March 20, according to 
records <a href="https://cityprotect.com/map/list/agencies?toDate=2020-06-20T23:59:59.999Z&amp;fromDate=2020-03-16T00:00:00.000Z&amp;pageSize=2000&amp;parentIncidentTypeIds=148,8,97,15&amp;zoomLevel=15&amp;latitude=38.95354554763392&amp;longitude=-95.25034449075551&amp;days=1,2,3,4,5,6,7&amp;startHour=0&amp;endHour=24&amp;timezone=%2B00:00&amp;relativeDate=custom" target="_blank">on CityProtect</a>.The
 amended charges are Class A sexual battery misdemeanors for touching 
the individuals “unlawfully, and without consent … with the intent to 
arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of the defendant or another.”The
 six new counts involve four people, all of whom were between the ages 
of 19 and 23 when the alleged assaults occurred. Two allegations were a 
week apart in March 2016; one spans Sept. 1 through Oct. 31, 2018; 
another two were on the same day — Sept. 30, 2019 — and the last was on 
Oct. 14, 2019, allegedly touching one of the same individuals in the 
Sept. 30 incident.O’Brien’s attorney, Philip Sedgwick, said 
Wednesday he had no comment about the new charges, for which a new 
warrant had not yet been issued. O’Brien is scheduled for a preliminary 
hearing on Sept. 1. If convicted, he could face up to a year in jail and
 a fine of up to $2,500 for each count.KU contracts with O’Brien,
 obtained earlier this year through a public records request, say he 
provided massage therapy for the women’s basketball team from January 
through June 2015; for women’s tennis from July 2015 to June 2016; for 
the softball team from April to June 2017 and again from late December 
2017 through June 2018; and for the women’s soccer team from July 2017 
through June 2019.The records request did not include contracts for beyond June 30, 2019, for any of those four sports. KU said <a href="https://chancellor.ku.edu/news/2020/mar5" target="_blank">on March 5</a> that O’Brien’s contract “has been terminated,” but didn’t specify on what date.KU
 said in late March that an athletic trainer knew of “unwarranted and 
unwanted touching” but hadn’t appropriately reported it. The school also
 said it filed Clery Act reports — the federal law requires schools to 
track and report campus-related crimes — for the allegations it had 
found, and that an internal investigation was still ongoing.KU didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to a request for an update on the internal investigation.KU’s
 athletic department has dealt with a host of issues lately. The NCAA 
charged the basketball program with five of the most serious rules 
violations related to recruiting. Head coach Bill Self has disputed 
those charges. The school has also denied charges of less serious rules 
violations for the football program. Plus, the athletics department 
recently settled a lawsuit with former football coach David Beaty over 
allegations that he was fired to avoid a payout.Other universities have faced scandals regarding medical staff and athletes, notably<a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/757909245/michigan-state-university-to-pay-4-5-million-fine-over-larry-nassar-scandal" target="_blank"> Michigan State</a>,
 where a doctor who also worked for USA Gymnastics admitted sexually 
assaulting female patients for decades, and Ohio State, where a 
physician sexually abused<a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/20/former-ohio-state-doctor-abused-nearly-200-young-men-no-consequences-decades" target="_blank"> male student-athletes</a>.Erica Hunzinger is the news editor for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/ehunzinger" target="_blank">@ehunzinger</a>.

Massage therapist connected to KU athletes faces more sex assault charges

TOPEKA— The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Kansas increased by 767 to a total of 24,104 the state health department reported Wednesday afternoon.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/160/COVID-19-in-Kansas">Click here&nbsp;</a>for additional numbers from the KDHE.

TOPEKA— The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Kansas increased by 767 to a total of 24,104 the state health department reported Wednesday afternoon.&nbsp;Coronavirus deaths were reported at 308<a href="https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/160/COVID-19-in-Kansas">Click here&nbsp;</a>for additional numbers from the KDHE.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595437830569.png" alt="July 22, 2020 KDHE image" />
 <figcaption>July 22, 2020 KDHE image</figcaption>
 </figure>

KDHE: Latest coronavirus numbers in Kansas

By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2020/07/21/kansas-enforces-nations-most-draconian-penalty-for-unemployment-fraud/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA
 — Spirit AeroSystems production worker Michelle Tran was a victim of 
mass layoffs in March as aircraft manufacturing shuddered under a 
coronavirus-induced meltdown.

This
 single parent of three children ranging in ages from 10 to 22, 
including a son with autism, was cast into the social safety net along 
with more than 200,000 other Kansans deemed nonessential features of the
 workforce. She sought jobless benefits along with her peers, but her 
application was red-flagged by the Kansas Department of Labor. The 
agency concluded she accepted a week of excessive state assistance three
 years ago when she was last out of work.

Tran
 said she hadn’t received prior notice of that allegation but pulled 
money from savings to pay nearly $1,000 in principal and interest. Once 
the labor department had the money, she said, she was banned from the 
Kansas program for five years to comply with the nation’s toughest state
 law penalizing people accused of defrauding the unemployment system. It
 left her broke and sleeping on a friend’s couch.

“I
 lost my apartment. I lost my car. No job,” Tran said. “What they’ve 
done is wrong. How the hell, at a time like this, can you take what 
little we have?”

The
 state’s labor department says Tran is among 7,000 people carrying the 
burden of a five-year fraud ban, and at least 400 of those individuals 
have filed claims for unemployment assistance amid the pandemic.

Based
 on a 50-state analysis of unemployment law, the sanction in Kansas is 
out of step with most states in terms of the duration of penalties for 
providing false information or failing to disclose part-time income or 
returning to full-time work while still cashing unemployment checks. 
More than 40 states punish misconduct with prohibitions of one year or 
less, although the type of exceptions vary widely depending on repayment
 of the money or status as a repeat offender.

Kansas
 House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a Republican from Wichita, said he 
would be loathe to diminish the penalty for anyone perpetrating criminal
 fraud against the state. He said he would be interested in studying 
options for creating wiggle room in the statute to deal with nuanced 
cases in which a person had no intent to defraud the unemployment trust 
fund.

“There are cases like that,” Hawkins said.&nbsp;

Colorado
 imposes a four-week ban for every week a person accepted ill-gotten 
aid, placing that state in a category of 20 other states with penalties 
of less than one year. Across the United States, the sanction amounts to
 one week in South Dakota and Arizona and two weeks in Connecticut and 
Massachusetts. There’s a seven-week ban in Illinois that includes a 
two-week moratorium for each subsequent instance of misconduct. 
Arkansas’ system blocks cheaters for 13 weeks, plus three weeks for 
every week of bogus benefits claimed.

Oklahoma, Iowa and Montana disqualify false applicants for 52 weeks, which reflects the law in two-dozen states.

Hawaii
 applies a two-year moratorium on people who try to take advantage of 
jobless benefits. No state exacts a first offense penalty of three or 
four years. Kansas stands alone in terms of the price paid by folks 
categorized as welfare cheaters.

The
 2013 Kansas Legislature expanded the penalty for unemployment fraud 
from one year to five years. The measure, House Bill 2105, was signed by
 Republican Gov. Sam Brownback during a period in which the Kansas 
Chamber, other business lobbying organizations and major employers 
worked with legislative and executive branches of state government eager
 to tighten welfare assistance.

The
 bill sent to Brownback was opposed primarily by Democrats dramatically 
outnumbered by Republicans in the House and Senate. The statute cleared 
the House 89-31 and the Senate 27-12. The package saved the state $50 
million annually in payments to the unemployed by unilaterally removing 
the equivalent of 18% of people eligible for unemployment insurance 
benefits at that time.The maximum jobless benefit period was slashed 
from 26 weeks to 16 weeks — a law temporarily reverted to the 26-week 
model this spring by state lawmakers to take advantage of supplemental 
federal funding for the unemployed.

The
 2013 legislation also raised taxes on businesses by $90 million to 
strengthen the unemployment trust fund that was saved from insolvency 
during the recession by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from 
the federal government.

“We
 want to make sure that fund is healthy. Unfortunately, everybody has to
 pay,” Sen. Julia Lynn, a Republican from Olathe and chairwoman of the 
Senate Commerce Committee, <a href="https://www.cjonline.com/article/20130405/NEWS/304059784">said at the time</a>.

Ramifications
 of the bill’s major structural reforms were the focus of news coverage,
 which infrequently noted the new five-year penalty for falsely taking 
unemployment benefits.

The
 Brownback administration was lauded by the right and denounced by the 
left for riding this wave of welfare reform bills. Brownback, who now 
works in the administration of President Donald Trump as an 
international ambassador of religious freedom, was keen to advance his 
view that President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs were a 
failure. He blamed welfare programs for exacerbating the breakdown of 
family structure and for perpetuating generational poverty.

The
 GOP governor relied on executive orders and legislative action from 
2011 to 2018 to shape public policy to his belief that Kansans could 
lift themselves out of poverty. In addition to the unemployment benefits
 overhaul, he was responsible for blocking Medicaid expansion, raising 
the state’s sales tax on food and cutting Temporary Assistance for Needy
 Families from the federal five-year maximum to 24 months.

Ahead
 of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kansas Department of Labor, on behalf of 
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, introduced a House bill that would have 
modified the 2013 law. The idea of the agency’s bill was for the state 
to roll back the punishment of people found to have made false 
statements to obtain or increase unemployment benefits — if those 
individuals repaid the state for excess benefits plus penalty and 
interest.

Kelly said intentional criminal acts must be punished, but people shouldn’t pay such a heavy price for mistakes.

“There
 is fraud that goes on. In fact, we’re seeing an uptick in identity 
theft right now within our unemployment system, where people are 
applying for benefits under someone else’s name,” Kelly said. “For 
people who, you know, it’s just a sinister move on their part, not only 
should they be denied benefits for five years, they probably ought to be
 paying other consequences. When you talk about people for whom it was 
an honest mistake. … I think we really need to be dealing with that on a
 case-by-case basis and not do blanket punishment.”

The
 bill introduced by the Kelly administration in February was shelved by 
the GOP-led House commerce committee, and it was killed off in May.

During
 the final hours of the 2020 special session in June, which was called 
by the governor to deal with COVID-19 oversight issues, House Democrats 
took a different tact. Rep. Jarrod Ousley, D-Merriam, proposed an 
amendment that would have removed the lockout if improper benefits were 
repaid. His amendment also sought to waive all repayment penalties 
throughout the pandemic.

“In
 this time of crisis,” Ousley said, “households are getting broken and 
we’ve got an anticipated second wave coming. Folks are still getting 
locked out for five years.”

The
 GOP majority in the House rejected his proposal on a voice vote, action
 taken after the amendment was denounced by the House commerce committee
 chairman.

Rep.
 Sean Tarwater, the Stilwell Republican who chairs the House Commerce, 
Labor and Economic Development Committee, said Ousley’s amendment was a 
misguided attempt to reward Kansans who “mysteriously accepted money for
 several weeks after they got their jobs and just forgot to let the 
state know.”

“On
 the surface this amendment seems OK,” Tarwater said. “This is a bad 
precedent to reduce it or waive it just because of a disease. These 
people still committed a crime, and they know what the penalty was, and 
it’s now time to pay the price.”

Rep.
 Stephanie Yeager, D-Wichita, said Tarwater lacked a necessary 
understanding of how easy it was for a person to assume unemployment 
checks sent to them by the labor department had been accurately 
calculated.

For
 proof, she said, look no further than her husband, James, who works in 
the notoriously cyclical Wichita aviation manufacturing. He was laid off
 during 2014 and took unemployment benefits for several months before 
returning to work. He followed KDOL advice on handling the transition 
back to a job, Yeager said.&nbsp;

“He
 wasn’t aware there was an issue until he got a letter in the mail about
 attending a hearing,” she said. “They slapped a label on him: Fraud. Do
 you know what his sin was? He got paid an extra week. We paid it back 
and he was still banned for five years. It’s insulting for somebody like
 my husband.”

Sen.
 David Haley, a Democrat from Kansas City, Kansas, said Kansas statute 
failed to differentiate between cases of blatant criminal fraud and 
instances in which lack of communication by the state or beneficiaries 
led to an overpayment subsequently corrected. The state should abandon 
the five-year experiment and return to a penalty more in line with 
comparable states, he said.

“It
 should never have been implemented,” Haley said. “It takes us, Kansas, 
to the very bottom of the swamp to protect special interests against 
people who disproportionately need help.”

Kansas
 House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, said he wouldn’t welcome mercy to a
 hardened criminal but would be open to considering a less-severe 
sanction for mistakes attributed to out-of-work Kansans.

“We
 do not want somebody banned for unintended error,” Ryckman said. “If 
you falsify documents and get caught, I still think you should be 
subject to the ban.”

Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595433381161.png" alt="Spirit AeroSystems employee Michelle Tran discovered after furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic that she had inadvertently accepted years ago unemployment benefits she wasn't entitled to receive. She paid back the money with interest, but is banned from getting jobless assistance for five years under Kansas law. (Submitted by Michelle Tran to Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Spirit AeroSystems employee Michelle Tran discovered after furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic that she had inadvertently accepted years ago unemployment benefits she wasn't entitled to receive. She paid back the money with interest, but is banned from getting jobless assistance for five years under Kansas law. (Submitted by Michelle Tran to Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2020/07/21/kansas-enforces-nations-most-draconian-penalty-for-unemployment-fraud/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA
 — Spirit AeroSystems production worker Michelle Tran was a victim of 
mass layoffs in March as aircraft manufacturing shuddered under a 
coronavirus-induced meltdown.This
 single parent of three children ranging in ages from 10 to 22, 
including a son with autism, was cast into the social safety net along 
with more than 200,000 other Kansans deemed nonessential features of the
 workforce. She sought jobless benefits along with her peers, but her 
application was red-flagged by the Kansas Department of Labor. The 
agency concluded she accepted a week of excessive state assistance three
 years ago when she was last out of work.Tran
 said she hadn’t received prior notice of that allegation but pulled 
money from savings to pay nearly $1,000 in principal and interest. Once 
the labor department had the money, she said, she was banned from the 
Kansas program for five years to comply with the nation’s toughest state
 law penalizing people accused of defrauding the unemployment system. It
 left her broke and sleeping on a friend’s couch.“I
 lost my apartment. I lost my car. No job,” Tran said. “What they’ve 
done is wrong. How the hell, at a time like this, can you take what 
little we have?”The
 state’s labor department says Tran is among 7,000 people carrying the 
burden of a five-year fraud ban, and at least 400 of those individuals 
have filed claims for unemployment assistance amid the pandemic.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595433438335.jpeg" alt="From left, House Speaker Ron Ryckman and House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins say they are willing to consider a less severe sanction for unintended errors. (Nick Krug for Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>From left, House Speaker Ron Ryckman and House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins say they are willing to consider a less severe sanction for unintended errors. (Nick Krug for Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>Nation’s toughestBased
 on a 50-state analysis of unemployment law, the sanction in Kansas is 
out of step with most states in terms of the duration of penalties for 
providing false information or failing to disclose part-time income or 
returning to full-time work while still cashing unemployment checks. 
More than 40 states punish misconduct with prohibitions of one year or 
less, although the type of exceptions vary widely depending on repayment
 of the money or status as a repeat offender.Kansas
 House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a Republican from Wichita, said he 
would be loathe to diminish the penalty for anyone perpetrating criminal
 fraud against the state. He said he would be interested in studying 
options for creating wiggle room in the statute to deal with nuanced 
cases in which a person had no intent to defraud the unemployment trust 
fund.“There are cases like that,” Hawkins said.&nbsp;Colorado
 imposes a four-week ban for every week a person accepted ill-gotten 
aid, placing that state in a category of 20 other states with penalties 
of less than one year. Across the United States, the sanction amounts to
 one week in South Dakota and Arizona and two weeks in Connecticut and 
Massachusetts. There’s a seven-week ban in Illinois that includes a 
two-week moratorium for each subsequent instance of misconduct. 
Arkansas’ system blocks cheaters for 13 weeks, plus three weeks for 
every week of bogus benefits claimed.Oklahoma, Iowa and Montana disqualify false applicants for 52 weeks, which reflects the law in two-dozen states.Hawaii
 applies a two-year moratorium on people who try to take advantage of 
jobless benefits. No state exacts a first offense penalty of three or 
four years. Kansas stands alone in terms of the price paid by folks 
categorized as welfare cheaters.5-year hammerThe
 2013 Kansas Legislature expanded the penalty for unemployment fraud 
from one year to five years. The measure, House Bill 2105, was signed by
 Republican Gov. Sam Brownback during a period in which the Kansas 
Chamber, other business lobbying organizations and major employers 
worked with legislative and executive branches of state government eager
 to tighten welfare assistance.The
 bill sent to Brownback was opposed primarily by Democrats dramatically 
outnumbered by Republicans in the House and Senate. The statute cleared 
the House 89-31 and the Senate 27-12. The package saved the state $50 
million annually in payments to the unemployed by unilaterally removing 
the equivalent of 18% of people eligible for unemployment insurance 
benefits at that time.The maximum jobless benefit period was slashed 
from 26 weeks to 16 weeks — a law temporarily reverted to the 26-week 
model this spring by state lawmakers to take advantage of supplemental 
federal funding for the unemployed.The
 2013 legislation also raised taxes on businesses by $90 million to 
strengthen the unemployment trust fund that was saved from insolvency 
during the recession by borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from 
the federal government.“We
 want to make sure that fund is healthy. Unfortunately, everybody has to
 pay,” Sen. Julia Lynn, a Republican from Olathe and chairwoman of the 
Senate Commerce Committee, <a href="https://www.cjonline.com/article/20130405/NEWS/304059784">said at the time</a>.Ramifications
 of the bill’s major structural reforms were the focus of news coverage,
 which infrequently noted the new five-year penalty for falsely taking 
unemployment benefits.The
 Brownback administration was lauded by the right and denounced by the 
left for riding this wave of welfare reform bills. Brownback, who now 
works in the administration of President Donald Trump as an 
international ambassador of religious freedom, was keen to advance his 
view that President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs were a 
failure. He blamed welfare programs for exacerbating the breakdown of 
family structure and for perpetuating generational poverty.The
 GOP governor relied on executive orders and legislative action from 
2011 to 2018 to shape public policy to his belief that Kansans could 
lift themselves out of poverty. In addition to the unemployment benefits
 overhaul, he was responsible for blocking Medicaid expansion, raising 
the state’s sales tax on food and cutting Temporary Assistance for Needy
 Families from the federal five-year maximum to 24 months.‘Bad precedent’Ahead
 of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kansas Department of Labor, on behalf of 
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, introduced a House bill that would have 
modified the 2013 law. The idea of the agency’s bill was for the state 
to roll back the punishment of people found to have made false 
statements to obtain or increase unemployment benefits — if those 
individuals repaid the state for excess benefits plus penalty and 
interest.Kelly said intentional criminal acts must be punished, but people shouldn’t pay such a heavy price for mistakes.“There
 is fraud that goes on. In fact, we’re seeing an uptick in identity 
theft right now within our unemployment system, where people are 
applying for benefits under someone else’s name,” Kelly said. “For 
people who, you know, it’s just a sinister move on their part, not only 
should they be denied benefits for five years, they probably ought to be
 paying other consequences. When you talk about people for whom it was 
an honest mistake. … I think we really need to be dealing with that on a
 case-by-case basis and not do blanket punishment.”The
 bill introduced by the Kelly administration in February was shelved by 
the GOP-led House commerce committee, and it was killed off in May.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595433480053.jpeg" alt="The 2020 Kansas Legislature rebuffed an attempt in the House to revise a state law blocking anyone from receiving unemployment benefits for five years if accused of intentional or inadvertent fraud of the system. (Nick Krug for Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>The 2020 Kansas Legislature rebuffed an attempt in the House to revise a state law blocking anyone from receiving unemployment benefits for five years if accused of intentional or inadvertent fraud of the system. (Nick Krug for Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>During
 the final hours of the 2020 special session in June, which was called 
by the governor to deal with COVID-19 oversight issues, House Democrats 
took a different tact. Rep. Jarrod Ousley, D-Merriam, proposed an 
amendment that would have removed the lockout if improper benefits were 
repaid. His amendment also sought to waive all repayment penalties 
throughout the pandemic.“In
 this time of crisis,” Ousley said, “households are getting broken and 
we’ve got an anticipated second wave coming. Folks are still getting 
locked out for five years.”The
 GOP majority in the House rejected his proposal on a voice vote, action
 taken after the amendment was denounced by the House commerce committee
 chairman.Rep.
 Sean Tarwater, the Stilwell Republican who chairs the House Commerce, 
Labor and Economic Development Committee, said Ousley’s amendment was a 
misguided attempt to reward Kansans who “mysteriously accepted money for
 several weeks after they got their jobs and just forgot to let the 
state know.”“On
 the surface this amendment seems OK,” Tarwater said. “This is a bad 
precedent to reduce it or waive it just because of a disease. These 
people still committed a crime, and they know what the penalty was, and 
it’s now time to pay the price.”The fraud labelRep.
 Stephanie Yeager, D-Wichita, said Tarwater lacked a necessary 
understanding of how easy it was for a person to assume unemployment 
checks sent to them by the labor department had been accurately 
calculated.For
 proof, she said, look no further than her husband, James, who works in 
the notoriously cyclical Wichita aviation manufacturing. He was laid off
 during 2014 and took unemployment benefits for several months before 
returning to work. He followed KDOL advice on handling the transition 
back to a job, Yeager said.&nbsp;“He
 wasn’t aware there was an issue until he got a letter in the mail about
 attending a hearing,” she said. “They slapped a label on him: Fraud. Do
 you know what his sin was? He got paid an extra week. We paid it back 
and he was still banned for five years. It’s insulting for somebody like
 my husband.”Sen.
 David Haley, a Democrat from Kansas City, Kansas, said Kansas statute 
failed to differentiate between cases of blatant criminal fraud and 
instances in which lack of communication by the state or beneficiaries 
led to an overpayment subsequently corrected. The state should abandon 
the five-year experiment and return to a penalty more in line with 
comparable states, he said.“It
 should never have been implemented,” Haley said. “It takes us, Kansas, 
to the very bottom of the swamp to protect special interests against 
people who disproportionately need help.”Kansas
 House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, said he wouldn’t welcome mercy to a
 hardened criminal but would be open to considering a less-severe 
sanction for mistakes attributed to out-of-work Kansans.“We
 do not want somebody banned for unintended error,” Ryckman said. “If 
you falsify documents and get caught, I still think you should be 
subject to the ban.”Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.

Kan. enforces nation’s most draconian penalty for unemployment ‘fraud’

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting that injured a man near his home.

Just after 11:30p.m. Monday, police responded to report of a shooting at a home in the 1600 Block of North Erie in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.

At the scene, police located a 32-year-old man with a gunshot wound to his arm.&nbsp; EMS transported him to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. He remained hospitalized late Tuesday, according to Davidson.

Investigators learned the victim was inside the residence along with a 60-year-old woman when an unknown suspect in a silver or grey sedan fired shots at the home injuring the man. The woman was not injured. The vehicle was last seen traveling southbound on Erie.

Police do not believe this is a random incident and are asking the public for help with information in the case.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595361520035.png" alt="Police investigating the shooting early Tuesday -photo courtesy KWCH" />
 <figcaption>Police investigating the shooting early Tuesday -photo courtesy KWCH</figcaption>
 </figure>SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting that injured a man near his home.Just after 11:30p.m. Monday, police responded to report of a shooting at a home in the 1600 Block of North Erie in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.At the scene, police located a 32-year-old man with a gunshot wound to his arm.&nbsp; EMS transported him to a local hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. He remained hospitalized late Tuesday, according to Davidson.Investigators learned the victim was inside the residence along with a 60-year-old woman when an unknown suspect in a silver or grey sedan fired shots at the home injuring the man. The woman was not injured. The vehicle was last seen traveling southbound on Erie.Police do not believe this is a random incident and are asking the public for help with information in the case.

Police: Kan. man wounded in drive-by shooting outside home

By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-07-21/what-it-took-for-this-coronavirus-patients-80-000-air-ambulance-charge-to-go-away">Kansas News Service</a>

OSWEGO, Kansas — A vicious bout of coronavirus hospitalized Anil Gharmalkar in April.

The
 41-year-old got severely ill, quickly. His besieged lungs fought for 
enough oxygen to survive. His local hospital in rural southeast Kansas 
put him on a ventilator and rushed him by helicopter to the University 
of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, where he eventually pulled 
through. (You can hear him talk about his battle with the illness <a href="https://www.kcur.org/season-3/2020-07-20/s3-episode-3-anil-gharmalkar-jalon-evans-gharmalkar-and-tamarah-chancellor" target="_blank">here</a>.)

The
 helicopter company charged $80,000, and at first, Gharmalkar’s 
insurance wouldn’t pay. The difficulties he ran into resolving the 
matter hold lessons for anyone with COVID-19 medical bills.

A 
patchwork of laws and company policies mean you may well be shielded 
from any bills — but you might have to dig to figure out whether that 
applies to you and then push to assert your rights.

This 
story is part of our series, Bills of Health. Do you have a medical bill
 from Kansas that you want to share with a reporter? Email 
celia@kcur.org.

Gharmalkar and his wife, Jalon Evans-Gharmalkar, fretted for 
weeks about whether and how much they’d have to pay Air Methods for that
 chopper flight on their own if Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas didn’t 
pay up. He sought referrals for a lawyer and contacted a reporter.

“We didn't know — for lack of a better term — how ‘generous’ (Air Methods) were going to be if they thought we had assets.”

The
 family runs a small business with several semi-trucks, like the one 
that Gharmalkar was driving to deliver refrigerated meat across the 
Midwest and South when he came down with COVID-19.

The fear that 
they might need to shell out tens of thousands of dollars came when he 
was still struggling with after effects of the illness that lingered for
 months and landed him in the hospital three more times.

But that 
extra source of stress would have dissolved had either Air Methods or 
Blue Cross explained that the Gharmalkars couldn’t possibly be on the 
hook for the money.

That’s not the message they got as they made 
repeated calls trying to fix the situation. When they asked Air Methods 
what to expect, they didn’t get a clear answer. When they pleaded with 
Blue Cross, the insurer rejected their claim a second time.

“No one could say what’s going to happen and what you’re actually going to owe,” he said.

Ultimately, the Gharmalkars did not have to pay a dime toward the $80,000 charge.

A Blue Cross spokeswoman said the insurance company should have picked up the bill from the start.

“Once
 we looked into it further, did some more investigation, we did 
determine it was an emergency,” she said. “We also determined that it 
was COVID related.”

Here is how the Gharmalkar’s claim got 
resolved — after queries from the Kansas News Service — and some 
takeaway tips for anyone dealing with COVID-19 bills. And if you don’t 
find what you need here, also try our <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-05-26/expert-tip-sheet-for-pushing-back-against-your-medical-bills" target="_blank">Expert Tip Sheet For Pushing Back Against Your Medical Bills</a>.

A quick refresher on surprise bills

Air Methods is not 
in the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas network. That’s where things 
often get tricky for patients — for COVID-19 or anything else.

When
 you get health care from outside your insurance network, prices can be 
several times higher than normal. The doctor or hospital or ambulance 
company bills your insurer. The insurance company may find the price 
unreasonable and just pay part of it. Then you get billed for the rest.

That is commonly called a “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2019/08/01/what-is-surprise-billing/" target="_blank">surprise bill</a>,”
 and it’s separate from any charges for copay, coinsurance or 
deductibles. It’s usually legal, except in some parts of the country 
(not Kansas) that have started curbing the practice with state laws.

The
 Gharmalkars were grateful for the helicopter that whisked Anil to a 
major hospital in just under an hour. It may have saved his life. And 
they wanted Air Methods to get paid a fair price. But they also feared 
they’d soon face a hefty surprise bill if Blue Cross paid little or 
nothing.

Federal law may protect you against bills for COVID-19 treatment

Because of the pandemic, Congress gave the health care industry <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/cares-act-provider-relief-fund/index.html" target="_blank">emergency relief funds</a>. But it came with <a href="https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2020/05/01/the-provider-relief-fund-how-well-does-it-protect-patients-from-surprise-medical-bills-for-covid-19-related-services/" target="_blank">strings attached</a>. Companies that took the money — including Air Methods — can’t stick COVID-19 patients with surprise bills.

So
 ask your biller if they got a slice of the stimulus pie. If so, then 
you shouldn’t get a surprise bill. If you do, demand that they cancel 
it.

The federal government also has an <a href="https://data.cdc.gov/Administrative/HHS-Provider-Relief-Fund/kh8y-3es6/data" target="_blank">online list</a>
 of the recipients where you can check for specific doctors, hospitals, 
and more. But the complexity of business ownership and subsidiaries in 
health care means you might miss what you’re looking for.

Some companies have also made public promises not to bill COVID-19 patients.

Air
 Methods says it committed not to bill coronavirus patients even before 
it got federal relief money. Under no circumstances, its executive vice 
president for reimbursement said in an emailed statement, would Air 
Methods have billed the Gharmalkars for anything that Blue Cross didn’t 
pay.

The Gharmalkars would have loved to know that. But say they 
only got ambiguous assurances that the company hoped to get paid by Blue
 Cross, and not them.

And it’s hard to tell from the Air Methods 
website that a hard rule against surprise billing exists. Air Methods 
pointed the Kansas News Service to a sentence toward the bottom of <a href="https://www.airmethods.com/newsroom/blog/air-methods-blog/2020/04/09/during-covid-19-crisis-air-medical-services-are-crucial-component-to-timely-patient-care" target="_blank">a blog post</a> that says: “We will work closely with our patients to ensure their emergency air medical service is covered.”

The company’s webpage on COVID-19 billing doesn’t clarify that the company is legally barred from surprise billing patients.

How to tell if your health insurance should cover your COVID-19 treatment.

Likewise, your insurer may also have made commitments that protect you against COVID-19 bills.

Blue
 Cross announced in early April that it would cover COVID-19 treatment 
without any cost-sharing for patients with qualifying health plans. That
 didn’t stop the insurer from twice rejecting Air Method’s claim for 
transporting Gharmalkar.

Ask your insurer if it has a policy on 
COVID-19 services, and where you can read it. You may need to read up 
and then remind them what their own rules say. Pay attention to details 
including which types of health plans qualify for what, and for how 
long.

For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas plans qualify 
for full coverage of COVID-19 treatment without cost-sharing if they are
 what’s called “fully insured.” If you have a “self-funded” plan — often
 a large employer plan — the terms will vary by employer. Don’t know <a href="https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/fully-insured-vs-self-insured-self-funded-health-plans" target="_blank">which category</a> you fall into? Call Blue Cross to check.

The following <a href="https://blog.bcbsks.com/2020/04/20/member-faqs/" target="_blank">is covered</a> for fully insured Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas plans:

You
 should also ask your insurer what “no cost-sharing” means in this 
context. A spokeswoman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas said it 
means no copays, deductibles or surprise bills.

So how did Gharmalkar’s $80k charge get resolved?

Insurance
 statements started piling up soon after Gharmalkar’s hospitalization, 
alerting him to hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges for the 
life-saving care that got him through COVID-19.

To his relief, 
Blue Cross swiftly approved most of the claims. A few, he says, took a 
bit of work to clear up coding errors. The situation over his helicopter
 ride was the most difficult.

After Blue Cross rejected the bill 
the first time, Air Methods tried contacting the insurer on his behalf 
again to show the helicopter ride had been a medical emergency. But Blue
 Cross sent him another statement showing it wouldn’t pay anything 
toward the $80,000 bill.

Gharmalkar signed a federal medical privacy, or <a href="https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/formsandpubs/laws/hipaa/Pages/1.00WhatisHIPAA.aspx" target="_blank">HIPAA</a>,
 release form allowing the Kansas News Service to make inquiries on his 
behalf. He says his insurer swiftly circled back to him and said it was 
working on the claim.

Air Methods says it kept pushing, too, 
seeking to negotiate directly with Blue Cross. Ultimately the two 
parties agreed on a price: $23,339.

His win might help 
other people in Kansas. Air Methods says it approached Blue Cross Blue 
Shield of Kansas repeatedly in recent years to no avail, trying to 
strike a broader deal that would bring the helicopter company into the 
insurer’s network.

Blue Cross disputes that characterization. 
Regardless, both sides — one of the nation’s biggest medical helicopter 
providers and Kansas’ largest commercial health insurer — now say 
negotiations on a network deal are in the works.

Air Methods, 
which flew around 350 medical flights in Kansas last year, says talks 
only began in earnest in the middle of Gharmalkar’s case.

Bonus tip: There’s a state insurance department. And it can help you.

If
 you think you’re being asked to pay for coronavirus-related treatment 
in error, and you’ve tried to resolve the matter with your insurer, call
 your state insurance department.

“This is exactly the type of 
thing that they’re there for,” said Maanasa Kona, a professor at the 
Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University. “If an 
insurance company is giving you the runaround, you should be able to 
reach out to the department of insurance and ask them to step in to see 
what’s going on.”

In Kansas, you can call the department’s consumer hotline (800-432-2484), send <a href="mailto:kid.webcomplaints@ks.gov" target="_blank">an email</a> or fill out this <a href="https://sbs.naic.org/solar-web/pages/public/onlineComplaintForm/onlineComplaintForm.jsf?state=KS&amp;dswid=-8725" target="_blank">online complaint form</a>.

Last
 week, the department issued a consumer alert reminding people that 
insurers must cover COVID-19 testing without patient cost-sharing if the
 test was for diagnostic purposes. That’s related to <a href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/five-things-to-know-about-the-cost-of-covid-19-testing-and-treatment/" target="_blank">another recent federal law</a>.

But
 understanding the wrinkles of that law can be tricky, so Kansas 
Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt suggests calling her agency if 
you’re worried you were wrongly charged, and haven’t had luck asking 
your insurer about it.

“We really want people to give us a call 
and let us help them weed through this,” she said. “It’s more 
complicated than what meets the eye.”

Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports on consumer health and education for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Celia_LJ" target="_blank">@celia_LJ</a> or email her at celia@kcur.org.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595366052827.png" alt="Anil Gharmalkar came down with COVID-19 in rural southeast Kansas. When he kept getting worse, his local hospital intubated him and sent him by helicopter to Kansas City in hopes of saving his life. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption>Anil Gharmalkar came down with COVID-19 in rural southeast Kansas. When he kept getting worse, his local hospital intubated him and sent him by helicopter to Kansas City in hopes of saving his life. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-07-21/what-it-took-for-this-coronavirus-patients-80-000-air-ambulance-charge-to-go-away">Kansas News Service</a>OSWEGO, Kansas — A vicious bout of coronavirus hospitalized Anil Gharmalkar in April.The
 41-year-old got severely ill, quickly. His besieged lungs fought for 
enough oxygen to survive. His local hospital in rural southeast Kansas 
put him on a ventilator and rushed him by helicopter to the University 
of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, where he eventually pulled 
through. (You can hear him talk about his battle with the illness <a href="https://www.kcur.org/season-3/2020-07-20/s3-episode-3-anil-gharmalkar-jalon-evans-gharmalkar-and-tamarah-chancellor" target="_blank">here</a>.)The
 helicopter company charged $80,000, and at first, Gharmalkar’s 
insurance wouldn’t pay. The difficulties he ran into resolving the 
matter hold lessons for anyone with COVID-19 medical bills.A 
patchwork of laws and company policies mean you may well be shielded 
from any bills — but you might have to dig to figure out whether that 
applies to you and then push to assert your rights.<h2>This 
story is part of our series, Bills of Health. Do you have a medical bill
 from Kansas that you want to share with a reporter? Email 
celia@kcur.org.</h2>Gharmalkar and his wife, Jalon Evans-Gharmalkar, fretted for 
weeks about whether and how much they’d have to pay Air Methods for that
 chopper flight on their own if Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas didn’t 
pay up. He sought referrals for a lawyer and contacted a reporter.“We didn't know — for lack of a better term — how ‘generous’ (Air Methods) were going to be if they thought we had assets.”The
 family runs a small business with several semi-trucks, like the one 
that Gharmalkar was driving to deliver refrigerated meat across the 
Midwest and South when he came down with COVID-19.The fear that 
they might need to shell out tens of thousands of dollars came when he 
was still struggling with after effects of the illness that lingered for
 months and landed him in the hospital three more times.But that 
extra source of stress would have dissolved had either Air Methods or 
Blue Cross explained that the Gharmalkars couldn’t possibly be on the 
hook for the money.That’s not the message they got as they made 
repeated calls trying to fix the situation. When they asked Air Methods 
what to expect, they didn’t get a clear answer. When they pleaded with 
Blue Cross, the insurer rejected their claim a second time.“No one could say what’s going to happen and what you’re actually going to owe,” he said.Ultimately, the Gharmalkars did not have to pay a dime toward the $80,000 charge.A Blue Cross spokeswoman said the insurance company should have picked up the bill from the start.“Once
 we looked into it further, did some more investigation, we did 
determine it was an emergency,” she said. “We also determined that it 
was COVID related.”Here is how the Gharmalkar’s claim got 
resolved — after queries from the Kansas News Service — and some 
takeaway tips for anyone dealing with COVID-19 bills. And if you don’t 
find what you need here, also try our <a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-05-26/expert-tip-sheet-for-pushing-back-against-your-medical-bills" target="_blank">Expert Tip Sheet For Pushing Back Against Your Medical Bills</a>.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595366123182.png" alt="The Gharmalkar family sit in their Oswego home, three months after Anil's fight with COVID-19." />
 <figcaption>The Gharmalkar family sit in their Oswego home, three months after Anil's fight with COVID-19.</figcaption>
 </figure>A quick refresher on surprise billsAir Methods is not 
in the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas network. That’s where things 
often get tricky for patients — for COVID-19 or anything else.When
 you get health care from outside your insurance network, prices can be 
several times higher than normal. The doctor or hospital or ambulance 
company bills your insurer. The insurance company may find the price 
unreasonable and just pay part of it. Then you get billed for the rest.That is commonly called a “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/usc-brookings-schaeffer-on-health-policy/2019/08/01/what-is-surprise-billing/" target="_blank">surprise bill</a>,”
 and it’s separate from any charges for copay, coinsurance or 
deductibles. It’s usually legal, except in some parts of the country 
(not Kansas) that have started curbing the practice with state laws.The
 Gharmalkars were grateful for the helicopter that whisked Anil to a 
major hospital in just under an hour. It may have saved his life. And 
they wanted Air Methods to get paid a fair price. But they also feared 
they’d soon face a hefty surprise bill if Blue Cross paid little or 
nothing.Federal law may protect you against bills for COVID-19 treatmentBecause of the pandemic, Congress gave the health care industry <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/cares-act-provider-relief-fund/index.html" target="_blank">emergency relief funds</a>. But it came with <a href="https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2020/05/01/the-provider-relief-fund-how-well-does-it-protect-patients-from-surprise-medical-bills-for-covid-19-related-services/" target="_blank">strings attached</a>. Companies that took the money — including Air Methods — can’t stick COVID-19 patients with surprise bills.So
 ask your biller if they got a slice of the stimulus pie. If so, then 
you shouldn’t get a surprise bill. If you do, demand that they cancel 
it.The federal government also has an <a href="https://data.cdc.gov/Administrative/HHS-Provider-Relief-Fund/kh8y-3es6/data" target="_blank">online list</a>
 of the recipients where you can check for specific doctors, hospitals, 
and more. But the complexity of business ownership and subsidiaries in 
health care means you might miss what you’re looking for.Some companies have also made public promises not to bill COVID-19 patients.Air
 Methods says it committed not to bill coronavirus patients even before 
it got federal relief money. Under no circumstances, its executive vice 
president for reimbursement said in an emailed statement, would Air 
Methods have billed the Gharmalkars for anything that Blue Cross didn’t 
pay.The Gharmalkars would have loved to know that. But say they 
only got ambiguous assurances that the company hoped to get paid by Blue
 Cross, and not them.And it’s hard to tell from the Air Methods 
website that a hard rule against surprise billing exists. Air Methods 
pointed the Kansas News Service to a sentence toward the bottom of <a href="https://www.airmethods.com/newsroom/blog/air-methods-blog/2020/04/09/during-covid-19-crisis-air-medical-services-are-crucial-component-to-timely-patient-care" target="_blank">a blog post</a> that says: “We will work closely with our patients to ensure their emergency air medical service is covered.”The company’s webpage on COVID-19 billing doesn’t clarify that the company is legally barred from surprise billing patients.How to tell if your health insurance should cover your COVID-19 treatment.Likewise, your insurer may also have made commitments that protect you against COVID-19 bills.Blue
 Cross announced in early April that it would cover COVID-19 treatment 
without any cost-sharing for patients with qualifying health plans. That
 didn’t stop the insurer from twice rejecting Air Method’s claim for 
transporting Gharmalkar.Ask your insurer if it has a policy on 
COVID-19 services, and where you can read it. You may need to read up 
and then remind them what their own rules say. Pay attention to details 
including which types of health plans qualify for what, and for how 
long.For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas plans qualify 
for full coverage of COVID-19 treatment without cost-sharing if they are
 what’s called “fully insured.” If you have a “self-funded” plan — often
 a large employer plan — the terms will vary by employer. Don’t know <a href="https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/fully-insured-vs-self-insured-self-funded-health-plans" target="_blank">which category</a> you fall into? Call Blue Cross to check.The following <a href="https://blog.bcbsks.com/2020/04/20/member-faqs/" target="_blank">is covered</a> for fully insured Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas plans:<ul>
 <li>COVID-19
 treatment until the end of this year, whether at a doctor’s office, 
urgent care facility, emergency room or as a telehealth patient or 
hospital inpatient.</li><li>Also until the end of this year: Medically 
necessary diagnostic tests related to COVID-19 and the related 
telehealth or physical visit to the doctor's office, urgent care or 
emergency room. If you got, say, a flu test, and it led to the doctor 
ordering a COVID-19 test, too, then the flu test would also be covered.</li><li>COVID-19 antibody testing “for the duration of the declared public health pandemic.”</li>
 </ul>You
 should also ask your insurer what “no cost-sharing” means in this 
context. A spokeswoman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas said it 
means no copays, deductibles or surprise bills.So how did Gharmalkar’s $80k charge get resolved?Insurance
 statements started piling up soon after Gharmalkar’s hospitalization, 
alerting him to hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges for the 
life-saving care that got him through COVID-19.To his relief, 
Blue Cross swiftly approved most of the claims. A few, he says, took a 
bit of work to clear up coding errors. The situation over his helicopter
 ride was the most difficult.After Blue Cross rejected the bill 
the first time, Air Methods tried contacting the insurer on his behalf 
again to show the helicopter ride had been a medical emergency. But Blue
 Cross sent him another statement showing it wouldn’t pay anything 
toward the $80,000 bill.Gharmalkar signed a federal medical privacy, or <a href="https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/formsandpubs/laws/hipaa/Pages/1.00WhatisHIPAA.aspx" target="_blank">HIPAA</a>,
 release form allowing the Kansas News Service to make inquiries on his 
behalf. He says his insurer swiftly circled back to him and said it was 
working on the claim.Air Methods says it kept pushing, too, 
seeking to negotiate directly with Blue Cross. Ultimately the two 
parties agreed on a price: $23,339.His win might help 
other people in Kansas. Air Methods says it approached Blue Cross Blue 
Shield of Kansas repeatedly in recent years to no avail, trying to 
strike a broader deal that would bring the helicopter company into the 
insurer’s network.Blue Cross disputes that characterization. 
Regardless, both sides — one of the nation’s biggest medical helicopter 
providers and Kansas’ largest commercial health insurer — now say 
negotiations on a network deal are in the works.Air Methods, 
which flew around 350 medical flights in Kansas last year, says talks 
only began in earnest in the middle of Gharmalkar’s case.Bonus tip: There’s a state insurance department. And it can help you.If
 you think you’re being asked to pay for coronavirus-related treatment 
in error, and you’ve tried to resolve the matter with your insurer, call
 your state insurance department.“This is exactly the type of 
thing that they’re there for,” said Maanasa Kona, a professor at the 
Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University. “If an 
insurance company is giving you the runaround, you should be able to 
reach out to the department of insurance and ask them to step in to see 
what’s going on.”In Kansas, you can call the department’s consumer hotline (800-432-2484), send <a href="mailto:kid.webcomplaints@ks.gov" target="_blank">an email</a> or fill out this <a href="https://sbs.naic.org/solar-web/pages/public/onlineComplaintForm/onlineComplaintForm.jsf?state=KS&amp;dswid=-8725" target="_blank">online complaint form</a>.Last
 week, the department issued a consumer alert reminding people that 
insurers must cover COVID-19 testing without patient cost-sharing if the
 test was for diagnostic purposes. That’s related to <a href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/five-things-to-know-about-the-cost-of-covid-19-testing-and-treatment/" target="_blank">another recent federal law</a>.But
 understanding the wrinkles of that law can be tricky, so Kansas 
Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt suggests calling her agency if 
you’re worried you were wrongly charged, and haven’t had luck asking 
your insurer about it.“We really want people to give us a call 
and let us help them weed through this,” she said. “It’s more 
complicated than what meets the eye.”Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports on consumer health and education for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/Celia_LJ" target="_blank">@celia_LJ</a> or email her at celia@kcur.org.

Virus patient fights to make $80K air ambulance charge go away

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump came prepared.

As he took the podium&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/bfb8402551605ff40d8a16efbd827b92">Tuesday</a>&nbsp;to give a briefing room update on the coronavirus for the first time in months, the president was asked an obvious question: If wearing a mask is “patriotic,” as he tweeted this week, why didn’t he wear one more frequently?

“Well, I do actually do it when I need. I mean, I carry the mask,” Trump responded. He reached into his suit jacket pocket and produced his for the cameras: navy blue, with a presidential seal.

“I have no problem with the masks. I view it this way: Anything that potentially can help, and that certainly can potentially help, is a good thing. I have no problem. I carry it, I wear it ... and I’ll continue,” he added.

The comments were a dramatic about-face for a president who, for months, resisted wearing a face covering in public and complained privately he thought it would make him look weak and would focus attention on the public health crisis rather than the economic recovery.

Even as top public health officials, who initially had advised the public not to wear masks, became convinced that face coverings could effectively halt the spread of the virus and begged the public to embrace them, Trump resisted. He mocked Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing one, asked reporters to remove them and entertained the idea that people might be wearing them to spite him.

“I just don’t want to wear one myself,” he said in April. “I don’t know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk — the great Resolute Desk — I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know. Somehow, I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind.”

By Tuesday, as coronavirus cases continue to rise across much of the nation, Trump finally came around, saying, “I’m getting used to the mask.”

“I will use it gladly, no problem with it,” he said, urging those watching to follow his lead.

“When you can, use the mask. If you’re close to each other, if you’re in a group, I would put it on,” he said.

But that pronouncement was too little, too late for some public health officials, who have blamed the mixed messaging and Trump’s personal actions for politicizing mask-wearing and fueling a partisan social divide.

“I think it would have been enormous impact if he had done it from Day One,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University. He worried that Trump’s words would have only marginal impact in moving Americans who aren’t consistently wearing masks in public to do so.

If, from the beginning, “you had consistent messages at the federal, state and local level, if everyone had been on the same page all along on the importance of masks, we’d be in a different situation,” Gostin said.

And Trump still declined to wear a mask at the briefing — noting that he and the reporters who cover him are frequently tested. And he was seen without one Monday evening at the Trump hotel in Washington, where he attended a fundraiser and ate dinner.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an occasional informal Trump adviser, had urged the president to wear a mask to the briefing, saying during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday, “That’s what’s going to convince people that he’s serious about this.”

Trump tweeted a photo of himself in a face mask Monday, calling it an act of patriotism. He wore one for the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/7651589ac439646e5cf873d021f1f4b6">first time in public</a>&nbsp;earlier this month during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595414351557.png" alt="President Trump pulled his face mask from his suit pocket in response to a reporter's question during Tuesday's Coronavirus Task Force briefing-image courtesy White House" />
 <figcaption>President Trump pulled his face mask from his suit pocket in response to a reporter's question during Tuesday's Coronavirus Task Force briefing-image courtesy White House</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump came prepared.As he took the podium&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/bfb8402551605ff40d8a16efbd827b92">Tuesday</a>&nbsp;to give a briefing room update on the coronavirus for the first time in months, the president was asked an obvious question: If wearing a mask is “patriotic,” as he tweeted this week, why didn’t he wear one more frequently?“Well, I do actually do it when I need. I mean, I carry the mask,” Trump responded. He reached into his suit jacket pocket and produced his for the cameras: navy blue, with a presidential seal.“I have no problem with the masks. I view it this way: Anything that potentially can help, and that certainly can potentially help, is a good thing. I have no problem. I carry it, I wear it ... and I’ll continue,” he added.The comments were a dramatic about-face for a president who, for months, resisted wearing a face covering in public and complained privately he thought it would make him look weak and would focus attention on the public health crisis rather than the economic recovery.Even as top public health officials, who initially had advised the public not to wear masks, became convinced that face coverings could effectively halt the spread of the virus and begged the public to embrace them, Trump resisted. He mocked Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing one, asked reporters to remove them and entertained the idea that people might be wearing them to spite him.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595366343118.png" alt="White House image" />
 <figcaption>White House image</figcaption>
 </figure>“I just don’t want to wear one myself,” he said in April. “I don’t know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk — the great Resolute Desk — I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know. Somehow, I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind.”By Tuesday, as coronavirus cases continue to rise across much of the nation, Trump finally came around, saying, “I’m getting used to the mask.”“I will use it gladly, no problem with it,” he said, urging those watching to follow his lead.“When you can, use the mask. If you’re close to each other, if you’re in a group, I would put it on,” he said.But that pronouncement was too little, too late for some public health officials, who have blamed the mixed messaging and Trump’s personal actions for politicizing mask-wearing and fueling a partisan social divide.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/7/1595366561351.png" alt="White House image" />
 <figcaption>White House image</figcaption>
 </figure>“I think it would have been enormous impact if he had done it from Day One,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University. He worried that Trump’s words would have only marginal impact in moving Americans who aren’t consistently wearing masks in public to do so.If, from the beginning, “you had consistent messages at the federal, state and local level, if everyone had been on the same page all along on the importance of masks, we’d be in a different situation,” Gostin said.And Trump still declined to wear a mask at the briefing — noting that he and the reporters who cover him are frequently tested. And he was seen without one Monday evening at the Trump hotel in Washington, where he attended a fundraiser and ate dinner.Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, an occasional informal Trump adviser, had urged the president to wear a mask to the briefing, saying during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday, “That’s what’s going to convince people that he’s serious about this.”<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance. There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President! <a href="https://t.co/iQOd1whktN">pic.twitter.com/iQOd1whktN</a>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1285299379746811915?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 20, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Trump tweeted a photo of himself in a face mask Monday, calling it an act of patriotism. He wore one for the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/7651589ac439646e5cf873d021f1f4b6">first time in public</a>&nbsp;earlier this month during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.