Peer support key to helping returning vets overcome mental health problems

By Andy Marso
KHI News Service

KANSAS CITY, KAN. — Sitting in a Junction City coffee shop with his laptop and a pile of textbooks splayed on a table, Will Stucker looks like any other college student, if a bit older than average.

But Stucker, 38, has taken a different path to college than most of his classmates at Emporia State University.

His path took him to South Korea and Kuwait, then to a tank rolling toward Baghdad, then to an armored Humvee on the streets of a small town in Iraq where insurgents repeatedly tried to kill him — and two of them almost succeeded. Then, finally, to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Topeka, where counselors helped him work through the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he came home with.

Kansas and Missouri consumers have big stake in U.S. Supreme Court decision

By Jim McLean
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Consumers in Kansas and Missouri are among those who could be most affected if the U.S. Supreme Court eliminates federal subsidies in states that didn’t set up their own health insurance marketplaces.