Study: Kansans want more insurance

TOPEKA (AP) — What people want from a health-care system and are willing to pay for could be very different from what lawmakers have assumed.

A series of three eight-hour discussions in Overland Park, Garden City and Pittsburg focusing on health-care reform showed 88 percent of the participants put a high priority on everyone in the state having some health insurance coverage.

The study also showed strong support for preventive health care, for funding those costs through taxes, and for making sure everyone has a “medical home” — a health professional who would oversee the person’s health care.

The three discussions each included about 30 people who were asked to consider different approaches to health-care reform, focusing on three questions: how people should get their insurance, how to make people healthier, and who pays and how.

“There is a huge disconnect, and I think if they (lawmakers) don’t figure out how they are going to handle that they are going to be voted out of office,” said Corrie Edwards, executive director for the Kansas Health Consumer Coalition.

The nonprofit group, which advocates for access to affordable, quality health care in Kansas, was part of the project.

The Kansas Health Institute, an information resource center for state policymakers, also participated.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita, said state revenue is declining, and she does not want to expand a program only to have to cut people off later if is there isn’t enough money.

“You can ask for a lot of things. You can want a lot of things. The question is, can you pay for it?” she said.

Landwehr, who helped develop the health care reform package that the Legislature passed this year, said she had not seen the results of the study nor details on how it was conducted.

The disconnect between lawmakers and Kansas residents went both directions, said Kansas Health Institute president and chief executive Robert St. Peter, a physician.

“We heard that the people in the communities didn’t think the legislators were hearing them and their concerns and the people in the communities didn’t know anything about what was going on in Topeka,” he said.

The discussions took place during the legislative session, but people did not seem to know about the health care reforms lawmakers were working on, he said.

Viewpoint Learning Inc., a California-based company which conducted the group discussions, presented the results Friday in Topeka to about 50 people involved in various aspects of health care. The discussions, paid for in part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, were part of a multistate project that included Ohio and Mississippi and focused on people’s views on health care reform.