Each week, LINK nky is publishing a profile of one of our local legislators so that Northern Kentuckians can get to know the people representing them at the state level.
Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser rose to the rank of chairperson of the House Health and Family Services Committee quickly after she was first elected in 2016. A major party shift had given the Republicans control of the chamber and its committees for the first time in 95 years, and Moser – an experienced nurse and health policy administrator – seemed to be a good fit for the health committee.
Today Moser has a reputation as a legislative policy wonk who carefully researches bills that come before her committee. Her “informed policy” approach (as she calls it) has led to new laws that run the gamut from improving the care of cancer patients to increasing penalties for trafficking opioids.
In 2023, the retired neonatal ICU and flight nurse sponsored a bill that added cancer biomarker testing requirements to health insurance plans and Medicaid. The purpose? To tailor cancer treatment to the individual. It’s legislation she believes will save lives.
“It allows for people who are undergoing chemo to get targeted treatment without having to go through test and test and having to go through trial and error,” Moser told LINK nky.
Cancer screenings have been used for years to detect breast and colon cancers in Kentucky and elsewhere. But it wasn’t until 2022 that a state law was passed to create a state lung cancer screening program to address the high rate of lung cancer in Kentucky. Moser was the sponsor of the legislation (HB 219). She named it in memory of her mother Margaret Poore, who died of lung cancer in 2017.
“She had one chemo after another until they failed,” said Moser. “The goal of the (bill) is to make sure folks can get screened early and that we catch cancers early when they’re more treatable. It puts an advisory council in place to look at how the program is designed. And it creates a trust to let patients get the treatment they need if at risk.”
According to the American Lung Association, Kentucky’s five-year survival rate after lung cancer diagnosis was 20 percent in 2022. The national rate at the time was 25 percent. Moser said the screening law is turning that around.
“Kentucky is now near the top in terms of early screening. The hospitals are doing great, great work for early prevention,” she told LINK.
In 2024, Moser has different legislative plans. One of her bills is a broad maternal health bill to improve the health of pregnant women and their babies. Another would eliminate or waive prior authorization where needed. The goal is similar to that of many of her other proposals, she said – to ensure patients get the care they need.
Prior authorization is “the number one issue that health care providers and patients complain about,” she told LINK. “I fight with insurance providers a lot because, at the end of the day, the physician is the person who knows what the patient needs, not the insurers. So I’m going to keep working on (the bill).”
And more proposed policy is on the way. Moser has no shortage of ideas when it comes to health care. That may be a byproduct of being raised in a home where her mother was a nurse and her father was a family physician. Add Moser’s nursing career and her 39-year marriage to a pulmonologist and critical care physician to the mix, and her roots in the industry run even deeper.
Ask her what drives her legislative work and Moser comes back to policy that she says “drives up costs and interferes with patient care.” She plans to continue to peel away what she believes doesn’t work to find what does.
Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser (R-Taylor Mill) represents District 64 which includes central and eastern Kenton County. Moser is Chair of the House Health Services Committee. She is also a member of the House Elections, Constitutional Amendments, and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, House Judiciary Committee, and a non-voting member of the Budget Review Subcommittee on Health and Family Services. Additionally, Moser is the Co-Chair of the Interim Joint Committee on Health Services, a member of the Kentucky Health and Human Services Delivery System Task Force, and a member of the Interim Joint Committees on Judiciary, Budget Review Subcommittee on Health and Family Services (non-voting member), and State Government. Moser is also a member of several legislative caucuses.