From the Alvin and Rosalie Sara Check studio PBS Kansas Presents Kansas Week.

A new plan to finally tackle the hours long lines at the Sedgwick County Tag Office.

Why?

Closing one location for good might be the solution to long lines and ongoing frustration.

Also a coordinated crackdown across the state.

We'll break down the KBI raids on vape shops, including two here in Wichita, and what it signals in the ongoing battle over THC in Kansas.

But first, a high stakes political showdown in Washington is putting the health insurance of 160,000 Kansans on the line.

We'll discuss the warning from Kansas hospitals that premiums could skyrocket.

All of this coming up on this edition of Kansas Week.

Hello and welcome to Kansas Week.

I'm Karen Cirillo.

It's the issue at the center of the standoff in Washington, D.C.

that's led to the government shutdown.

And it comes with a warning for the 160,000 Kansans at risk of losing their health insurance.

That warning comes from a coalition of major Kansas hospitals, including Wesley and Ascension Via Christi.

They say that the expiration of Affordable Care Act tax credits means an average jump in premiums of 77%, costing a typical family of four an extra $2,500 a year.

In a joint letter, the CEOs warn that this will create a surge in uncompensated care and put immense strain on the entire health care system, and possibly for some rural hospitals to even shut down.

They are urging Kansas congressional delegation to support an extension, saying Kansans are counting on their leadership.

Here to discuss this and some of this week's other news.

State representative Nick Hodges, state Senator Stephen Owens, publisher of the County Courier traveler David Seton.

And Wichita State communications professor Jeffrey Jarman.

Thank you, all of you, for coming.

I'll put the two state lawmakers on the hook first here.

What do you think about this?

This is tough.

Go ahead.

Nick.

So, yeah, it's a tough conversation to have.

These ACA tax credit, they were actually, these enhanced tax credits came about during Covid.

They were extended again a couple of years later in the Inflation Reduction Act, which didn't actually, reduce inflation.

But they were never meant to be, permanent.

They were just they were just temporary to get us through with Covid.

You look at the shutdown now, these credits actually expire.

December 31st, the end of the year.

What we're seeing now with the government shutdown, in Washington, is the Democrats opposing a seven week cr.

Just a clean CR extension where there's no changes.

Republicans haven't really muddied up the waters, added things that they wanted.

It's just a clean CR for seven weeks to get us until kind of late November.

And CR is is a continuing resolution of the budget to keep the government open.

And that goes just until November.

This shutdown, again, is caused by the Democrats wanting to play hardball right now over these tax credits that don't expire till December 31st.

Instead of voting to keep the government open, keep our workers, government workers getting paid, our military folks getting paid, and continuing to have this discussion like Leader Thune has wanted.

The Democrats have decided to shut the government down right now over this one issue.

Senator Owens, I'll move on to you.

I had Jim Howell, Sedgwick County Commissioner, on the show last week.

We touched a little bit on this topic.

He mentioned that the 77% increase is actually over ten years.

It's not an expected 77% this year or next year.

It's over ten years.

Does that make it any easier?

I mean, it's still 77%.

Well, that sounds about like what our property taxes have gone up over the last ten years.

So, no, I think that that the costs are almost insurmountable for some people to try to absorb this.

Right?

There's so much that goes into the Affordable Care Act that it literally we're still dealing with this.

And Obama was the president how many years ago when it was passed?

There are so many things that need to be cleaned up, but what we've got to do is we've got to figure out a way to get our country back open and get it funded.

When you've got military bases shutting down and you've got other things that are happening and people not getting paid, that's a huge issue.

This is a great time for leadership in Washington.

And for the leaders of each party to come together and have a conversation about how to get this done and to work together.

David Seaton, I'll move over to you.

Some some Republicans are and I realize you're a journalist, so you're you're trying to stay unbiased.

But, some Republicans say this is an alarmist type of story and it's not actually that bad.

Would you agree?

Disagree.

Well, first let me say that there are lots of, readers in Kelly County that would say I am not unbiased.

I do take out positions, but, well, let me back up.

This is the real issue.

We our little small business.

Just recently, last year, we stopped having employee, paid health care, and we had people go to the marketplace because of these subsidies, because they could get better health care coverage at a lower cost.

Because on the Affordable Care Act, website, because of these subsidies.

And in fact, I switch my family to these.

So, so, this is a real thing, you know, and people are starting to talk about it.

They're starting to realize, hey, because even though they expire December 31st, you get to start renewing and look into how much you can afford.

And I guess people are going to get letters saying that, you know, you need to start looking at renewing, and this is what your prices might go up if you stayed on the same plan.

So so it's an issue that is really, I think, going to hit people's pocketbooks.

The politics of it, I don't really know.

I don't know if the Democrats are right to make a huge stand on this, where they could wait a little bit.

You know, but health care is a real thing that people are really concerned about.

Plus, they're also talking about the, the Medicaid cuts that was in the big, beautiful bill.

So that's how you want to describe it, that also hospitals are concerned about, too.

So it's one thing after the other for the hospitals.

We have a, two rural hospitals in our county.

The Ark City Hospital recently has shrunk and reduced services.

They went to a rural emergency status.

The Winfield hospitals are a little bit stronger, but they're concerned about everything, you know, because they're are kind of teetering now.

And I'll move on to you, Jeffrey.

Representative Hazel mentioned that the he blamed Democrats for this and this isn't happening until the end of the year.

But families have to make these don't families have to make these decisions now rather than the end of the year?

It's important this matters to people.

This is whether they can afford health care.

And we don't have enough time.

There's bipartisan support.

There are people on both sides of the aisle that want to extend these tax credits.

And if we put it off another six weeks, it could be another six weeks after that.

There's no guarantee unless people come to the table.

It is a time for leadership, and it wouldn't take much to fix this if people cared about getting health care, affordable health care to families in rural Kansas, especially where it's important all across our state.

Yeah.

Hospitals closing though we've been talking about rural hospitals closing for decades now.

If it's to say that it's one government program that is going to be the end all be all right.

If we look at, again, going back to the ACA being passed, part of the part of the ACA being passed was cutting Medicare funding to our rural hospitals.

And I know this firsthand from our local hospital.

And so when you're cutting from one pot to give it to another pot, the reality is government is rarely the solution in these in these types of situations.

Yet we have our hands all over these programs.

Yep.

All right.

Anything else Nick, to add.

All right.

We'll move on.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation launching a major crackdown this week.

Raiding ten vape and smoke shops accused of selling illegal marijuana and THC products.

The sweep, including two easy smoke and vape locations right here in Wichita, as well as stores in Pratt and Salina and Topeka.

Attorney General Chris Kovac says the raids were necessary after years of lax enforcement and reports of children ending up in the emergency room.

Kovac says the focus of the investigation is on the sellers, not the consumers, and he promises more raids are coming.

Jeffrey Jarman, what do you what do you think about this?

Great to hear that.

This is on the sellers.

And I mean, that's where that's where this needs to happen.

It's surprising that it has taken this long for them to do crackdowns like this.

It is it is weird to drive around town and see sales of THC and wonder.

I mean, I understand Wichita has decriminalized some some efforts, but we have not made these sales legal and we've not decriminalized that.

And it's not surprising that that the AG has stepped in on this.

And, you know, there's there's a product that I know that is sold, but don't use it myself.

But I do know some people who do called kratom.

Is anyone at this table familiar with that?

I have heard that there are a lot of quite familiar.

I mean, I think the real question is other legislatures around this country are taking up regulations.

I mean, we should ask our current legislators if there's any movement in this state for those kinds of regulations as well.

I will are you guys familiar with this?

So understanding that, as I understand, created it a little bit.

I do know I kind of switched out of the criminal justice world this past year when I moved into the Senate.

But kratom is a synthetic THC.

It's actually even far more dangerous.

As he said, this, this comes as no surprise to me.

The reality is the state legislature has not legalized THC.

What we have legalized is some of the production of CBD, the production of hemp, and that hemp is up to a 0.3% right .03 percent THC.

And so what they're doing is they're literally refining that hemp THC down and creating some of these products.

And there that is their argument for the legality of some of these things they're doing.

But the reality is, when you concentrated back down, you are breaking Kansas law.

Yeah, yeah.

This is an area where I know my good friend Senator Owens now, and I have disagreed in the past.

But the fact is correct, Kansas has not moved on medical marijuana.

That is something I support.

I believe there is a Kansas way to expand medical marijuana in state.

But the fact of the matter is, right now, it is illegal in the state of Kansas.

The job of the attorney general, the job of the KBI is to enforce Kansas law.

So I've had folks reach out to me the last few days concerned about this in my responses.

Listen, if you are knowingly selling that product, you are at risk of being raided because our Attorney General and the KBI are going to follow Kansas law.

If anybody has an issue with that, contact your legislator, you know, recommend that we do, take action, contact my good friend Stephen, I was here well, because as well as the former chair of juvenile justice, corrections, juvenile justice, I have serious concerns.

And they literally touching on it.

How is this going to impact our children?

Right, if we legalize, and to what extent how is it going to impact our children?

And I have not seen the benefit for them yet, you know, and create them.

Let me ask you a little more about kratom.

It's sold kind of as an energy booster, a mood stabilizer from what I've been able to hear about it.

But from what I can tell, there's zero regulation on this, on this product in the Mayo Clinic calls kratom unsafe and dangerous.

Yeah.

And there is zero regulation on kratom.

That is something that we absolutely need to address.

Right.

And sometimes it takes our laws time to catch up with the current trends of what's being produced out there.

Because again, this is just a synthetic form of THC trying to circumvent this.

There are some good uses of great amount.

Okay, I think some of the real problems are that though, there's not enough regulation in terms of manufacture and labeling to make sure people understand the dose they're taking and how much is viable.

It has served lots of people well as they move off of opioids.

Right.

And so there are benefits.

And so it you know, hopefully it wouldn't the regulations would not simply be to ban a thing, but to put in place regulations that protect consumers so they can use the products in ways that are safe and meant to be.

And I do know, just in this class that I do know in the past few weeks and months, KBI and the attorney general have sent warning letters out to businesses that were selling these products, warning them that they are on a compliance with state law.

So this shouldn't come as a shock to any of these establishments selling the product.

David, saying anything it has will a lot of the, you know, a lot of the stuff is apparently ending up in the hands of juveniles.

A what it's 21, right?

To buy a vape or a tobacco product is now.

Yeah.

So obviously it gets in the hands of juveniles and young people.

And, you know, it's only one quick step from vaping something legal or illegal if you're 18 to having putting THC in it and you know, it can really cause a problem and, and, and be a problem for our youth, you know.

All right.

Our next story.

A major change coming for drivers in Sedgwick County as officials work to tackle the long lines at the tag office.

The county is consolidating its Kellogg location into the main Douglas office, a move officials say will allow every window to be fully staffed at that office.

While the Kellogg office will permanently close on October 9th.

Three new satellite locations are set to open this month in Hazel Park City and at the K-State extension office.

Officials claim the consolidation will ultimately save taxpayers about $350,000 a year.

Commissioner Ryan Beatty says that, he doesn't like the media's coverage, and I'm I'm following what Commissioner Beatty said on his Facebook page that, yes, this is a a consolidation of the Douglas facility, but eight new satellite offices will actually open in the next few years.

Yeah, yeah.

And I believe Ryan is right on that front with the satellite offices.

At the end of the day, we've had this discussion in Topeka for the last few years.

How the provide more funding for these, these offices, instead of the local counties relying on just local property taxes?

That could be increase in fees.

There was a plan we kind of tried to put together last year that involved out-of-state, trucking semis and permits and using those fees, to help offset the cost.

We also need to have a conversation on how to do more online services.

And that's right.

And how to use technology in today's age to find those efficiencies.

Another idea that's being floated around is given more, power to dealerships to, handle some of these tax, issues in their offices after the new car sales.

So there's a lot of different ideas, going around now, I do think this next session, the Kansas legislature needs to take action on some plan to help modernize this system.

Well, and really, we had it.

We've had a major boondoggle with the software, if you remember correctly.

Yes.

We we were down for a month or two, and this continues to be a pervasive problem.

I was literally hearing from people standing in line in Sedgwick County frustrated with the hours of wasted time.

And so I'm glad to hear that that, Nick and others are looking at how do we open the door to more options, more opportunities involving technology, maybe dealerships, you know, Oklahoma.

For as long as I remember, it's totally privatized.

There's a little tag office in every county that's privately owned and operated.

Is that an option that we should look at?

There's certainly a better solution than the immense waste of time of going to the tag office.

Did you mention Oklahoma there?

Yeah, they they've privatized their situation completely, years ago, decades ago.

And they have dozens of offices, dozens of people employed.

It seems like it's adding to the economy.

There.

Is privatization in office an option here?

Should legislators look at doing that?

David Seaton, go ahead.

Yeah.

What else seems like something to review and examine?

I don't really know a whole lot about it.

I mean, I know it seems to function pretty well in Kelly County, the tag office, you know, and, my thought when I read about this story was, you know, I mean, don't you most people or you can renew through the mail, right?

Or online or shouldn't there be a bigger push to do that to reduce the actual in-person lines?

I heard as part of the problems that the county was having, the coolest system is what it's called.

That also went down so people couldn't use the online system to.

And then the last thing to point, the credit card processing, with down for a whole county, went down again.

So, to your point, though, on on online, I believe, and it's maybe something we need to change again.

Statute.

If you have a personalized tag or one of those, custom tags, you're not able to do that online.

You have to go in office to do that as well.

So that's probably something.

Again, that's government get in a way something that we can go in and tweak.

But yeah, that's yeah.

One issue.

The Kansas Supreme Court has sided with a woman who lost her job offer after refusing a Covid 19 vaccine on religious grounds.

This case began when the employer proverb rehabilitation.

Questioned the sincerity of Caitlin Kieran's beliefs and then rescinded its employment offer.

The company argued that federal law allowed them to do just that.

But in a 4 to 2 ruling, the state's high court disagreed.

The court found that a Kansas law that forbids employers from questioning the sincerity of religious beliefs is valid, reversing a lower court's decision.

Jeffrey Jarman, I'll give you the first to chime in here religious beliefs, since it's always a touchy subject.

Okay.

It is challenging and difficult.

The legislature spoke on this, and, I mean, in many ways, the decision by the court is not surprising.

The law is clear.

There's an interesting question about the relationship between federal law and state law that the court had to resolve.

But it's not surprising, given the way those two laws were written, that it's permitted by the feds and prohibited by the state, that the state would, you know, prevail in that sense.

I mean, really not surprising, given the laws as they exist.

Yeah, yeah, I was truly, truly grateful that I had a chance to work on this legislation.

I was on the special committee, and we were both part of the special legislative session.

I even carried this legislation in the House that was in question here.

And we quite literally used a federal definition of religious exemption that called for, firestick and non theater beliefs.

The whole idea here was the federal government at the time was putting pressure on our local employers that to make people get vaccinated.

And and if they didn't, they were going to lose their job.

And that was completely unacceptable.

So by passing this legislation, we we saved tens of thousands of jobs from being lost.

And I'm so glad to see that the Supreme Court actually stepped up and and upheld our law.

David Seton, you you mentioned you're you're a business owner.

You know, you deal with employees.

Well, and I, I, I read most of this decision.

It's long so I didn't get to at all.

But and I don't understand the legalese, but it's really fascinating debate about, you know, the Supremacy Clause.

You know what what should, reign supreme is that the federal, the vaccine mandate, including with with the religious liberty that the workplace needs to have some, ability to say, hey, wait, if you you're claiming religious liberty here, but it can't create a big hardship.

So this company thought, well, we're trying to follow the federal law.

If we don't, they may pull our money.

And, and that's going to be a big, huge hardship.

So I could kind of see where they were coming from.

And the interpretation, if you read the dissent, there's it's up to interpretation.

I wonder if this is still of course we don't.

We're not in the middle of a pandemic anymore.

But I wonder if this might come up again in the, in maybe the federal court system.

Can they appeal this to the federal courts or is it I mean, what happens from here with the case?

They, you know, given where we are on the timeline of all of this, I, I'm not sure it does.

You know, I don't know what purpose it would serve.

People might feel like they want to do that.

I mean, what what you said was really important, though.

This is open to interpretation.

And this is really why we need courts that have legitimacy.

Because we do need the courts to step in at the federal level, at the state level, to help, us understand what the laws are supposed to be.

It's why the criticisms of courts and, and, you know, fears of activism to me are really misplaced because this is the proper role of the court to step in and say what the laws mean.

And we have to uphold that.

Nicole.

Hazel, I'll give you a chance to chime.

Yeah, I was on the special committee with, Senator Owens.

When we wrote this thing.

We did.

We took a great care of of crafting this legislation, using the federal definition.

And I'm just a Stephen.

I'm glad to see it upheld.

Nobody should lose their job because of a religious belief.

So.

Yeah, but it's a bit like the sticking point with this, I think was like the sincerity of.

Right.

So that's right.

So with the state law, you can't question you.

It's supposed to what you're supposed to say.

I have religious beliefs against this like but the feds allow you to.

Right.

But they don't mandate you to.

And that's where they that's where the majority found some room to say the the state law is not superseded by that.

Right.

But aren't you but is there some concern like anybody any Joe Blow could just say, hey, I have a religious exam.

No.

Absolutely not.

That was that was quite literally the intention because because then you're asking an employer to determine what is an acceptable religious exemption or is your religion strong enough, or you live your faith well enough for it to be that?

No, it was intentionally the Bible.

But it's at this point is that anyone can claim anything and you can't question it.

No question you.

Right.

So when that happens, though, I you're on the side of not challenging somebody's beliefs.

I don't want an employer going and saying, did you go to mass last Sunday?

Quote, no, I didn't go to mass.

Well, your religion is not sincere, but what about the safety of the other employees that that work in the building or with this employer?

I may worry that, oh my gosh, this person's not vaccinated.

You know, there are other areas.

There are other ways to take care of those individuals.

There were other safety.

I mean, this was an issue of an employee, an employer judging an employee just based on religious beliefs.

If they have, that is actually you, though, they should be protected.

Okay, so let's be real.

That is a personal choice.

And we were literally trying to get as close to as we could the conscientious objector language as possible, because if I had my way, you wouldn't even have to claim a religious exemption.

You would just be able to say, I don't want to take it their patient.

So in hospital that could be susceptible and people more so I mean the it's and it wasn't whether somebody had a certain kind of religious belief.

It was a sincerity of it.

Right.

So and I don't know how far the law allows the government to go into somebody's background.

Yeah, because that's a good point.

You don't want the, you know, probing and investigating in the 30s, for instance, we learned they can't go any further than the declaration by the end of it.

That's right.

Okay.

So that's the line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And our last story today, the director of the the Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene says he was forced out of his job after refusing to give the white House an historic sword belonging to the former president.

Todd Arrington tells the Kansas News Service that the Trump administration wanted the artifact from the museum's collection to present as a gift to King Charles the Third.

Arrington says he explained he could not give away an artifact that belonged to the American people, and instead he helped the administration find a suitable replacement from West Point or a suitable replica from West Point.

Shortly after, Arrington says he was told to resign or be fired for no longer being trusted with confidential information.

Official comment from the white House and the National Archives is unavailable due to the government shutdown.

You know, it's an interesting note here.

The email to.

As I read more into this story, the email that Arrington received, came from a personal non-government address.

Gift girl 2025 at gmail.com.

If you were the director of the National Art for the Eisenhower Library, would you take an email seriously?

That came from Gift Girl 2025 at gmail.com.

Absolutely.

And, and there's there's so much of this story that is questionable, right?

We've got things like that.

We've heard one side of the story.

What's the other side of the story?

Right?

I mean, I understand if if we were to 100% believe his perspective on this, that I can I can respect that concern.

Right.

Believe it or not, there are things that this presidential administration does that I don't agree with, but I think that there's so much more to this story that needs to come out so that we can fully understand it better, represent, I mean, I don't think any email from Gift Girl 2.0.

Yes.

Not a no.

Sounds like trouble.

I will say I agree with Stevens Point that there's probably another side to this story that we haven't heard yet.

At least I hope so.

So I will withhold total judgment.

I will say, though, that if if his side is accurate, this is troubling to me, on several fronts.

No, no offense to our friends and allies across the pond.

I don't want, General Eisenhower sword going overseas.

I did see, a family member, of the Eisenhower family, comment online today that the the Eisenhower family actually owns the sword, and it's all loan approved them to the museum interest.

Which is another interesting point.

So really, it's not the museums to even give out.

But I will wait because of the the Democrats and the Schumer shutdown.

We don't know the government side of the story.

So I will wait for that.

Well, the easy story is these belong to the government of the United States and the people of the United States.

And the president doesn't have the authority to give our artifacts away.

Period.

So in many ways, I don't know what the rest of the rest of the story is, why he got fired or had to resign.

Not whether this sword, this sword should not go across the pond.

It shouldn't go across the state line.

It's ours.

And it's not the president, but we're assuming that what he says is historically true and that the president actually called for that.

And that's what the intent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Right.

But I understand your perspective on it.

And I that's the important thing for people to learn.

These artifacts belong to us.

Absolutely not.

So we are just hearing kind of one side of the story so far as that's a good point.

But but that side of the story does kind of line up with what we know to be true about the Trump administration, right?

I mean, he he fired the national expert, he's fired the national archivist and the librarian of Congress.

It was the National Archives when he had reported their missing documents that got him in trouble with the documents in Mar-A-Lago that he got charged with federal crimes for.

He kind of uses agencies to fill up government, kind of at his whim and tries to push him around to get what he wants.

And so it lines up.

But it's true.

We don't know the whole story.

So and that's a wrap for this week.

Thank you so much to Nicole Hazel, Stephen Owens, David Seton and Jeff Jarman for joining us.

And thanks also to cake and CSN for sharing your stories with us.

We'll see you next week on Jared Cirillo.

You.