Livable Communities

AARP Kansas is pleased to once again co-sponsor the annual Wichita Pride Family Picnic at O.J. Watson Park in Wichita on Saturday, June 17, 2017 beginning at 11 am. Bring your family and friends for food and fun. A Wichita Pride 2017 button is required to attend. Buttons cost $5 and may be purchased at the event.

The AARP Fraud Watch Network brings fraud-fighting efforts to consumers nationwide in “Operation: Stop Scams”-- a month-long series of events in communities coast-to-coast, as AARP state organizations sponsor more than 150 free local events in nearly every state and the District of Columbia from in April and May, 2017.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Millions of Americans lose billions of dollars to scams and fraud each day. Every day criminals become more sophisticated in how they separate you from your hard earned savings, using fear, greed, and urgency to push the “right” buttons in people to get them to open their wallets. Unfortunately, Kansas is among those whose citizens’ lives have been turned upside down because of fraud. AARP Kansas is providing information about how to safeguard against identity theft and other forms of fraud and scams through the AARP Fraud Watch Network. The Fraud Watch Network has a number of tools and activities to help protect you and your family from con artists. The information is free to everyone, members, non-members and people of all ages.

AARP research consistently finds that the vast majority of people age 50 and older want to stay in their homes and communities for as long as possible.