Sports: Iola squads falter in return to court See B1
THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
www.iolaregister.com
What Obama’s gun action means By JOSH LEDERMAN The Associated Press
Garage burns
David Greathouse’s garage burned this morning from a wood stove-sparked blaze southwest of Iola. Firefighting efforts were hampered after firefighters ran out of water. Full details of the fire will be in Thursday’s Register. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY
Medical arts building to stay in place By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Allen County commissioners will learn soon what needs to be done for the medical arts building, long an adjunct to the old Allen County Hospital, to remain in place when G&W Foods opens a grocery on the site. Dan Ware, a local contractor, pointed out a tunnel entering the building’s basement area must be maintained to provide an emergency exit. He
will meet with state fire marshal officers to determine how that will be accomplished. Most likely, an above-ground entrance, inside a concrete cubicle, will be constructed as the exit and entrance point to the tunnel. County Counselor Alan Weber said the county intended to keep the medical arts building, even if a new one were constructed near Allen County Regional Hospital on North Kentucky Street. The building is in good condition,
he said, and can be used for other health-related activities, including hospice and home health. As for the old hospital, now less than a wisp of its original structure, demolition should be completed today or Thursday, Weber said. Next step will be to acquire dirt and hire someone to haul and compact it in the basement area, which is now “a hole as large as an Olympicsized swimming pool.” Weber said he was unsure when engineers for G&W
would be in Iola to coordinate final preparation of the site for the new grocery, but soon enough to monitor compaction of crushed rock and soil in the basement to ensure it would support a new building. In additional to the grocery, Iola Industries is working to attract developers of apartment complexes on the old hospital property. Iola council members are yet to decide how they want to deal with what promises to be increased traffic in the area.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s plan to strengthen controls on guns in the U.S. is meeting swift resistance from gun rights groups, Republicans and even a few Democrats who say it’s up to Congress to enact new policies on firearms. Yet the overall effect on gun violence could prove to be relatively small. Some questions and answers about Obama’s presidential actions on gun control: WHAT ACTION IS OBAMA TAKING?
Obama announced a 10-point plan to try to keep guns from people who shouldn’t have them. The centerpiece is new federal guidance that seeks to clarify who is “in the business” of selling firearms and has to get a federal license. Licensed dealers must run background checks See GUNS| Page A2
Alleged hydrogen bomb test brings back Cold War images TOKYO (AP) — The announcement today from North Korea that it had carried out a nuclear test brought to the front lines of global attention a phrase not often heard since the Cold War — “the H-bomb.” As opposed to the atomic bomb, the kind dropped on Japan in the closing days of World War II, the hydrogen
Osawatomie issues may bring revamped care system By MEGAN HART KHI News Service
Some mental health advocates in Kansas see a silver lining to Osawatomie State Hospital losing its Medicare payments: a chance to redesign a system they say was already strained and underfunded. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in December it would decertify Osawatomie, meaning the hospital no longer would receive about $1 million in monthly payments from Medicare to care for patients with severe mental See REVAMPED | Page A4
bomb, or so-called “superbomb” can be far more powerful — experts say, by 1,000 times or more. North Korea’s first three nuclear tests, from 2006 to 2013, were A-bombs on roughly the same scale as the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which together killed more than 200,000 people. Pyong-
yang announced Wednesday that it had detonated its first H-bomb; while seismic data supported the claim of a large explosion, there was no immediate way to confirm the type. Atomic bombs rely on fission, or atom-splitting, just as nuclear power plants do. The hydrogen bomb, also called
the thermonuclear bomb, uses fusion, or atomic nuclei coming together, to produce explosive energy. Stars also produce energy through fusion. “Think what’s going on inside the sun,” says Takao Takahara, professor of international politics and peace research at Meiji Gakuin Uni-
versity in Tokyo. “In theory, the process is potentially infinite. The amount of energy is huge.” The technology of the hydrogen bomb is more sophisticated, and once attained, it is a greater threat. They can be made small enough to fit on See H-BOMB | Page A4
Forum explores ‘conservative’ Medicaid expansion By MIKE SHERRY KHI News Service
If policymakers in deepred Indiana can do it, so can their equally conservative counterparts in Kansas. That was the dominant — though not unanimously held — message at a forum Tuesday at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, where the topic was expanding the Kansas Medicaid program to cover as many as 150,000 additional Kansans. Doug Leonard, president of the Indiana Hospital Association, told an audience of more than 300 people at the forum that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is a conservative like Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, was satisfied that Medicaid expansion in Indiana was fiscally sound in the short- and long-term. “He
Quote of the day Vol. 118, No. 47
As Kansas lawmakers looked on, Tom Bell of the Kansas Hospital Association made a point at a forum on Medicaid expansion Tuesday in Overland Park. HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR/MIKE SHERRY/KHI NEWS SERVICE
was not going to throw the state under the bus,” Leonard said. The expanded Indiana program, which took effect nearly a year ago, has added more than 220,000 residents
to the Medicaid rolls. Nearly 1,000 new health care providers have joined the program. Kansas, by contrast, is one of 20 states that have not expanded Medicaid, which in Kansas is a privatized pro-
“Respect is what we owe; love, what we give.” — Philip James Bailey, English poet 75 Cents
gram that goes by the name KanCare. A February analysis by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation called the Indiana plan the most complex waiver of the four the federal government had approved up until that time. The analysis cited the state’s four Medicaid packages and varied treatment of beneficiaries based on variables such as income, medical frailty and maintenance of premium payments. The government has allowed states to experiment with new approaches to Medicaid through expansion. One general idea in these waivers is to have recipients pay premiums and co-pays. That’s the case in Indiana. Leonard said that Medicaid beneficiaries in Indiana See MEDICAID | Page A4
Hi: 41 Lo: 35 Iola, KS