A recent Topeka Capital-Journal article focusing on staffing difficulties at the two-year old Kansas Health Policy Authority speaks volumes about why adding more responsibilities to that government agency is a bad idea.

The KHPA was created to take over responsibility for the management of the state's Medicaid program (with the exception of long-term care which remains housed in the Department of Aging). It also handles the state employee health care system, with responsibility in both cases for enrollment, financing and operations.

Recently a spokesperson for the KHPA stated that the agency was having difficulties enrolling individuals for Medicaid programs. Unless twenty-one new staff members were added, "the backlog of claimants could take up to a year to sort through."

Staff problems are not restricted to enrollment, though. KHPA executive director Marci Nielsen added that an additional forty-two employees may be needed to deal with other issues the agency was created to do. "We already had a need for more staff just because Medicaid is growing. When you add in the new requirements, the backlog is huge," Nielsen said.

Notice that there is no thought given to cutting Medicaid or thinking of different ways of providing insurance to the individuals on Medicaid. Rather, the KHPA board in its October 2006 meeting endorsed Governor Kathleen Sebelius' proposal to insure all children five years of age and under with Medicaid dollars. They can't handle the burdens they have now and they want to expand the program more?

Yet the Kansas Senate wants to do the same thing. The Kansas Connector, a health insurance exchange proposed by Republican Jim Barnett in Senate Bill 309, will add to the administrative burden of the KHPA and to the fiscal problems experienced by state-managed systems in Kansas.

This is because the Kansas Connector takes as its model the Massachusetts Connector - a program already experiencing huge issues in terms of insurance costs and administrative problems. When Barnett first proposed this during his gubernatorial race last fall, it seemed like a good idea. It contained no mandates that individuals and companies purchase insurance through the Connector or face penalties. It sounded remarkably similar to a mechanism recently advanced by Flint Hills Center for Public Policy fellow Michael Bond.

Alas, in the Senate Bill 309 version the KHPA has the authority to garnish wages of individuals who do not comply with purchasing insurance through the Connector. Wait - is this the same KHPA which cannot even handle the responsibilities of managing Medicaid and other prerogatives for which it was formed two years ago? Individuals and businesses who don't comply with the new law and who fail to purchase insurance through the Connector will face tax penalties. The Connector as proposed now (unlike when Barnett ran for governor) contains mandates and punitive measures for those who do not comply with the insurance requirement in the law.

Thankfully there is another proposal circulating at the statehouse, that of the House Health Care Task Force. Chaired by first-term state representative Jeff Colyer, the task force has devised a significant and comprehensive reform package designed to attract more insurance providers to the state, move individuals from government dependency to private insurance, and develop a privately-run insurance exchange which will not coerce individuals to purchase insurance through it. Labeled KanCare the package of general proposals put forth by the task force may be the model for comprehensive reform of the health care system.

The House task force recognizes that solutions to the problems in the Kansas health care system are to be found in the private sector, not in the public. Instead of seeking a quick fix to the complex issues of health care, Colyer believes the reform agenda put forth last week by the House is "foundational for setting the scope of overall reform."

The choice is between the piecemeal reform advocated by the Senate in its pursuit of a Connector and the comprehensive scope of the House reforms. The choice is between the public sector gaining more power and expanding in size and scope and empowering the consumer and energizing the private sector.

Rather than following the slippery slope of health reform advocated by states like Massachusetts and California, Kansas should focus on its frontier heritage and embrace the model advanced by the House. That is the type of comprehensive proposal which can free citizens in the state from dependency, provide insurance for those without it and assist in making the Kansas health care system the most effective model in the nation - without adding any more responsibilities or staff to overburdened state agencies.

Gregory L. Schneider is a senior fellow with the Kansas-based Flint Hills Center for Public Policy. A complete bio on Dr. Schneider can be found at http://www.flinthills.org/content/view/24/39/, and he can be reached at greg.schneider@flinthills.org. To learn more about the Flint Hills Center , please visit www.flinthills.org.