AARP Kansas

With Governor Brownback’s veto of KanCare (the Kansas version of Medicaid) expansion, House Bill 2044, the Kansas House now has the opportunity to put hardworking Kansans first and overturn the governor’s veto. Maren Turner, director of AARP Kansas—with more than 320,000 members age 50 and older in the Sunflower State—issued the following statement, urging the House to take action now.

With a snip of the ribbon, AARP officially became a part of the Atwater Resource Center in Wichita's District 1. On Saturday, March 4, AARP State Director Maren Turner and AARP Volunteer State President Glenda DuBoise joined with Wichita Vice-Mayor LaVonta Williams, City Manager Robert Layton, Atwater Community Representative Kameelah Alexander and members of the Wichita Council of Elders to take part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Investment fraud schemes cost Americans tens of billions of dollars a year. AARP has identified eight risk factors that predict who is most likely to be defrauded.

Nearly 16,000 Kansans reported they were victims of fraud in 2015, according to the Federal Trade Commission, but consumers can learn how to protect themselves, thanks to the AARP Fraud Watch Network.

On February 23, the Kansas Senate voted 38-1 in favor of the Kansas Lay Caregivers Act (SB 68 as amended), otherwise known as the CARE Act. The CARE Act would require Kansas hospitals to give each patient the opportunity to designate a caregiver when they enter the hospital so the caregiver's name can be recorded, the caregiver is informed when the patient is transferred or about to be discharged, and the caregiver is given instruction on how to take care of the patient when he or she returns home. Some patients return home needing complex medical and nursing tasks as they recuperate. The CARE Act helps ensure that the caregiver knows what to do and how to do it giving the patient a better chance of getting well and not being readmitted to the hospital.

With Americans losing tens of billions of dollars annually to investment fraud schemes, what mindsets and behaviors are common among those who fall victim? A new survey by the AARP Fraud Watch Network finds that the most susceptible typically exhibit an unusually high degree of confidence in unregulated investments and tend to trade more actively than the general investor population. More of the investment scam victims also reported that they value wealth accumulation as a significant measure of success in life and acknowledged being open to unsolicited telephone and email sales pitches.

At AARP, we believe Medicare is a deal with the American people that must not be broken.

AARP FOUNDATION TAX-AIDE VOLUNTEERS IN KANSAS WILL PROVIDE FREE TAX ASSISTANCE AND PREPARATION THROUGH APRIL 18--FIND A LOCATION NEAR YOU

On February 1, 2017, the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, chaired by Senator Vicki Schmidt, heard testimony on Senate Bill 68, the CARE Act. This proposed legislation would support the 345,000 Kansas caregivers who are providing unpaid care to a family member or loved one. The CARE Act, (Caregiver, Advise, Record, Enable Act) is another tool to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations by ensuring that caregivers are acknowledged and instructed on how to care for their loved one when he/she returns home from the hospital. It is a NO COST, commonsense solution to help formalize important discharge practices.

What could have been a $4.54 per month rate increase, was reduced to a $1.25 a month increase for Kansas Gas Service customers as a result of a settlement agreement approved by the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) in November.