Health
Care Reform Update: Iowa Shows How Reform Should Be Done

Republicans in Washington refuse to vote for health care reform policies for political reasons, even when those policies are mainstream and virtually identical to previous Republican proposals (see Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care system).

Iowans are more reasonable – even our Republican legislators! We can be proud of our legislature for working towards providing quality affordable health care to all our citizens, even in a tough economy. They managed to pass some low cost measures to improve access to health care, while avoiding cuts in Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals.

The IowaCare Health Plan provides health services to some low income adults who do not qualify for Medicaid (e.g., childless adults). Although an effort to expand the coverage to more Iowans failed, the program was improved in several ways. First, previously patients could only receive care at the University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City or Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines. Under the new law, patients can see a local primary care provider, who will be reimbursed by IowaCare. Local hospitals will also be reimbursed for emergency services. And for the first time, specialists at the University of Iowa treating IowaCare patients will be paid for their services.

The bill improving IowaCare passed in the Senate with strong bipartisan support, 45 to 5. Way to go, Republicans!

Here is a cool website at the Commonwealth Fund where you can compare Iowa’s health care system to the rest of the country. Iowa ranks number 2 for “overall” and “access” (Vermont is number 1 “overall,” and better than Iowa in several areas. Probably Howard Dean’s impact from when he was governor ).

Compare Iowa to the disaster happening in Arizona, a state with a Republican governor and Republican legislature (although if you read the article above about the failure to expand IowaCare, you’ll see it was a Democrat with ties to the insurance industry that led the effort to defeat the expansion, so I’m not saying all Democrats care about the uninsured)!

Arizona adopted a budget that repealed their state’s Children’s Health Insurance Progam (the equivalent of our HAWK-I program) ending coverage for 47,000 children. The budget also kicks 310,000 of Arizona’s low income people out of Medicaid.

Naturally, with Republicans in charge Arizona is facing a huge budget shortfall. The federal government will most likely have to bail them out. Also, because of provisions in the new federal health care reform legislation, they may have to reconsider their plan to balance the budget on the backs of poor children and their parents.

If the rest of the country would follow Iowa’s example of fiscal responsibility, compassion for the poor and sick, and doctors and hospitals that provide high quality health care at bargain rates it would go a long way towards solving the health care crisis!