4 years after the pandemic, KS lawmakers still pushing reactionary public health measures
When Kansas and the rest of the nation locked down during the early days COVID-19 pandemic, backlash quickly followed suit.
Politicians and citizens grew quickly frustrated and protested the uniform implementation of mask mandates, public gathering restrictions and visitation limits in hospitals and nursing homes.
Four years down the line, Kansas lawmakers are still pursuing legislation as a result of those frustrations, honing in on efforts to curtail the powers of public health officials and prevent hospitals from denying patients in-person visitors.
The state Senate passed two bills last week: one that would significantly limit the powers of public health officials to mitigate outbreaks of infectious diseases, and another that would require hospitals to permit in-person visits with little flexibility.
The bills parallel similar legislation introduced in recent years but failed to become law. They’re driven in part by fringe conservative groups who have, since the pandemic, sought to limit vaccine requirements and protested other mitigation strategies in an effort to protect “health freedom.”
“Well, let’s assess negative outcomes with the Covid debacle,” said Sen. Mark Steffen, a Hutchison Republican and an anesthesiologist who has publicly challenged the use of mask mandates and lockdowns to limit the spread of COVID-19.
“Patients dying alone, educations compromised, businesses permanently closed, suicides, untreated acute and chronic illnesses,” he said. “That’s a partial list. How could it be worse?”
Steffan has cast the measures as violations of individual freedoms.
Proponents contend the measures are necessary to preserve individual freedoms and curtail public health officials from overstepping their power. Other Republicans, alongside Democrats, say the bills go too far and present far more risks than benefits.
Sen. Kristen O’Shea, a Topeka Republican, also said health officials abused their power during the COVID-19 pandemic and called the state’s mitigation methods “totally inappropriate.” But she said many of these bills go too far and could put Kansans at risk.
“What’s ironic is that I’m so unhappy with how the government handled COVID-19 for businesses, for loved ones who were in the hospital or nursing homes,” she told the Star. “I feel like common sense wasn’t used. But now I feel like the pendulum has swung the opposite direction and that common sense is not being used to seek solutions. It’s like everybody wants to capitalize on that crisis.”
Techniques such as lockdowns, mask mandates and quarantines were effective in limiting the spread of COVID-19, according to multiple studies and research.
The ‘Patient Bill of Rights’
At least eight states - including Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas - have enacted laws that prevent hospitals from restricting in-prison visitations to their patients. The legislation is a reaction to pandemic-era hospital rules. Those included restricting in-person, bedside visits for fear of spreading COVID-19 further. The result, proponents say, is that many patients died isolated and alone.
The Senate bill is named for 59-year-old John Springer, a Larned native who died in December 2021 at a hospital in Oklahoma. His wife, Peggy, asked lawmakers to consider the bill after her husband was continually “confused, isolated and alone” when hospital restrictions prevented her from being inside his room to advocate for his treatment and care.
Loneliness and social isolation negatively affect both physical and mental health, significantly increasing a patient’s risk for heart disease, premature death, stroke and dementia, according to a recent U.S. Surgeon General advisory report.
In February, Lindsay Berning, a Kansas resident, told lawmakers in written testimony that COVID-19 visitation policies were harmful and unreasonable. Berning said she recalled watching her grandmother slip away as her Alzheimer’s progressed during COVID-19, separated from her family.
Because of her debilitating Alzheimer’s, Berning’s grandmother struggled to understand why her family could not be with her and visits were often cut short since she could not even grasp the concept of talking on the phone.
“My mother couldn’t hug her mother and I couldn’t hug my grandmother, even if none of us had any symptoms,” Berning testified. “Connection and community are basic human rights.”
Berning’s story is just one of many detailing the deprivation of Kansans’ ability to visit with loved ones during the pandemic due to medical care facility restrictions. But opponents of the bill, while they agree with the intent behind it, say the measure goes too far and could potentially put hospitals out of business.
Steffen’s bill, SB 352, would bar medical care facilities from prohibiting in-person visitation for two people at a time. It also lists a number of patient rights that hospitals must adhere to. Those include the patient’s right to choose their physician, be fully informed and involved with their medical care plan, the right to confidentiality and that a minor must be accompanied by their caregiver at all times.
Any violation of the listed patient rights would allow the plaintiff to recover the greater of actual damages or $25,000, as well as the cost of the lawsuit, including reasonable attorney fees, the bill says.
Steffen said the bill is meant to take care of citizens and ensure that hospitals, who have a “fear of rules and regulations,” cannot take the same course of action they did during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Medical facilities need to comply with federal regulations
On the Senate floor, the legislation was amended to ensure medical care facilities could still comply with federal regulations in order to keep the vital billions of dollars in Medicaid and Medicare funding. If a hospital, while following the bill’s guidelines, is found to be in violation of federal regulations, the state would backfill the federal funding it lost.
A report from the Kansas Hospital Association found 73% of hospitals across the state function on a negative operating margin. Rural hospitals are in even worse shape, with 89 out of 104 rural hospitals in the state at risk of closing, according to the report.
The Kansas Hospital Association and the Kansas Medical Society opposed the bill and advocated for flexibility in visitation policies to ensure hospitals could hold onto federal Medicaid and Medicare dollars.
Cindy Samuelson, a lobbyist with the Kansas Hospital Association, worried the Senate bill’s codified method of pursuing legal recourse, paired with the risk of losing federal dollars could send these hospitals over the edge.
Hospitals must treat patients no matter if they can pay or not, she said. If hospitals were to lose Medicaid and Medicare federal dollars, a large portion of Kansans would no longer have health care. As a result, uncompensated care costs, along with potential CMS fines for breaking federal guidelines, would skyrocket and bankrupt hospitals across the state.
“We’ve got a lot of struggling hospitals in Kansas because they’re facing all sorts of financial burdens and challenges,” Samuelson told the Star. “And any legislation that adds to that is going to be really detrimental to the Kansas hospitals trying to serve patients and communities across our state.”
O’Shea, the Topeka Republican senator, said Steffen’s bill would effectively close hospitals across the state if they garner multiple $25,000 lawsuits against them.
“How many hospitals have the ability to sustain a few of these complaints against them?” she said. “Or how many hospitals would have to close if they get a few of these complaints against them at the cost of $50K?”
Rep. John Eplee, an Atchison Republican who is a primary care physician, called the Senate bill a “mess.” Hospitals already do their best to meet all of the rights laid out in Steffen’s bill and codifying and encouraging a path of legal action against hospitals is detrimental, he said.
He drafted a separate bill on the House side, HB 2548, that partially responds to concerns from the Kansas Hospital Association and the Kansas Medical Association. It gives patient care centers some flexibility in requiring in-person visitation rights and does not lay out a direct path for lawsuits against medical care facilities.
Bill to limit the power of public health officials
The patient’s bill of rights push comes as lawmakers continue a years-long effort to restrict the power of public health officials.
Last week the Senate approved a bill that prohibits the secretary of the Department of Health and Environment from adopting rules and regulations to control infectious or contagious diseases, granting authority to only recommend the adoption of mitigation policies such as quarantines.
The bill, which fell short of a veto-proof majority, is similar to a measure vetoed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly last year.
Opponents of the measure worry the legislation would have disastrous effects on public health officials’ ability to enact timely response to outbreaks of infectious diseases, potentially allowing diseases like mumps to run rampant again.
Eplee criticized the continued push against public health measures following the pandemic. He said public health officials acted in a way thought to be appropriate and that it was difficult to draw conclusions on a disease in real time.
He maintained that KDHE did “pretty darn good” at doing their codified job in an era of uncertainty.
“I think it’s just so wrong,” Eplee said in an interview. “It doesn’t recognize all the good works and all the amazing efforts put forth by thousands of healthcare officials that were trying so hard to do the right things and give the best care they knew how to give. It was an impossible situation and we did the best we could.”
This story was originally published February 29, 2024 at 4:15 AM.