Inside: YC courthouse design wins contest See A6
Football: Veteran walks on Maryland team
The Weekender See B1
Saturday, December 28, 2013
STATE
Hitting the ‘reset button’ on Medicaid
FROSTED FRAMES IN ALLEN COUNTY
By JIM MCLEAN KHI News Service
TOPEKA — The Kansas Hospital Association has hired former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to help craft a Medicaid expansion plan that Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislators might support. Tom Bell, KHA’s president and CEO, said he hopes that Leavitt — a former Republican governor of Utah who headed HHS under former President George Tom Bell W. Bush — can help Kansas policymakers craft a plan similar to those developed in Arkansas and Iowa, which expand Medicaid through the use of private insurance companies. “We ought to as a state be having a conversation about whether we can come up with a plan like that and the reality is that conversation just hasn’t happened yet,” Bell said. Bell said Leavitt has agreed to help promote discussion among legislators and those in the health care industry about expanding Medicaid, which in Kansas is called KanCare.
REGISTER/SUSAN LYNN
See RESET | Page A2
NOW WE’RE COOKIN’ Jackson shares tradition from a Californian perspective
IOLA CITY COUNCIL
By SUSAN LYNN The Iola Register
During the holidays, Elyssa Jackson turns to her native roots when it comes to cooking. Jackson, 25, is a third-generation Californian who has lived in Iola a little more than a year. She came here by way of a position with the Allen County Historical Society, which she has since lost. Now, she works a combination of three jobs, Elyssa Jackson including as interim director of the Christian education program with First Presbyterian Church, as a barista at Around the Corner coffee shop, and as an instructor with SAFE BASE, the Iola school district’s after-school program. “I like all three jobs” she said, “but my goal is to use my degree.” Jackson has a degree in art history from the University of California at Santa Barbara and is working toward her master’s in museum studies through San Francisco State. See COOKIN’ | Page A2
Quote of the day Vol. 116, No. 43
City council tables EMS rent debate
By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
Iola council members Monday night tabled until the new year efforts to resolve whether to pay rent to have access to Allen County’s ambulance station in the 400 block of North State Street. Council members, and city staff, think an agreement to merge Allen County and Iola ambulance services should make the building rent-free. County commissioners think otherwise, and requested rent of $250 a month. Corey Schinstock, assistant city administrator, pointed to a paragraph in the merger agreement in a discussion with the Register Thursday. To wit: “. . . County shall transfer possession but not title to all county EMS service vehicles, equipment and buildings listed in Exhibit ‘A’ to City.” “That seems pretty clear,” Schinstock said, although, he added, no exhibit A has been added to the agreement, but that “the county
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” — Albert Einstein 75 Cents
ambulance station is the only county building involved.” County commissioners have maintained that because the building wasn’t specifically included in the agreement, as part of the socalled exhibit A, the city has no right to use it without the commissioners’ blessings, and, as it unfolded at their behest, rent of $250 a month. “The way it stands right now, we’re going to wait until after the first of the year and have Bob (Johnson, city attorney) and Ryan (Sell, EMS director) work it out with the county,” Schinstock said. In any case, he said how use of the building shakes out won’t have an effect on the agreement that merged the two ambulance services. The city wants to incorporate the building as a place for storage, some office activities and as a training facility. It became a need when Iola’s fire station was reconfigured to make room for female ambulance personnel. “We don’t want males and females sleeping in the same See RENT | Page A6
Hi: 52 Lo: 26 Iola, KS