The Kansas Health Policy Authority is currently touring the state (find out when they'll be in your town here) listening to Kansans' stories and soliciting ideas on how to solve the health care crisis. They'll use those ideas to put together a plan for full coverage to present to the Governor and Legislature later this year.

The Kansas Health Institute today describes how one of the first stories they've heard provides yet another example of how the current system is failing people every single day.

A couple months ago, 62-year-old Guadalupe Rios took herself to the emergency room at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

"I'd had a real bad stomach ache for like four days," she said. "It got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want to go because I don't have insurance. But I had to go."

Rios, who's single, said she was in the emergency room from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

"At 10:30 they took me up for some tests. They said my potassium levels were low, very low. They were worried about me," she said. "I left at 8:30 the next morning."

Her bill: Around $6,000.

That's more than half of what Rios, a gift-shop clerk, earns in a year.

Rios can't get on Medicaid because her $11,000 a year salary is "too much."

How much could she make and still get on Medicaid?

$3,778.

A year.

Rios doesn't want a free ride. She wants to pay her bills and pay her fair share. But like so many other Kansans, she also simply can't afford the skyrocketing cost of health insurance and health care. She says she's avoiding other surgery because of it.

Something needs to be done, and state leaders need to hear your stories.