22 minutes: (the portion on Medicaid privatization goes from the start to 4 minutes)
Fewer things can made me as happy as to hear Iowa’s new governor say he will erase one of the dumbest mistakes this state has ever made. As Sand says we can’t back out as fast as Branstadt drove us into this ditch, but says we are on our way.
For those who have been reading blogforiowa may remember that when Branstadt made this horrendous mistake we were at the head of the line pointing out how badly this was hurting Medicaid patients. Bottom line was that hundreds of millions of dollars that should have been going toward health care for Iowa’s Medicaid patients was instead going into the pockets of the CEOs of the Managed Care Operators who were “managing” the system that had worked extremely well under in house management until then.
So right off the bat a vote for the Democrat – Rob Sand – pays a huge dividend. I am sure those patients who should have been getting the health care that has been denied while the “managers” stuffed their pockets will be happy.
In researching this article I went back over some of blogforiowa’s postings on ‘medicaid privatization’ during the implementation years of 2016 to 2018. Doing so brought back some bitter memories of just how badly Republicans were screwing over the customer in this case – the Medicaid patient – in order to deliver big bundles of cash to the MCOs (Managed Care Operators).
Yet despite this and other major, major failures in this area, the insane cash vouchers for privatized schools, the soaring cancer rate in Iowa and the agricultural related problems that are not being dealt with such as CAFOs and of course the horrible water quality thhat is finally at least getting some notice – Iowans continued to elect Republicans to office with little question.
Well, thank goodness Rob Sand is coming out of the gate fixing problems. While a typical Iowa Republican legislature will do all it can to hamstring Sand as Governor much as they legislatively hamstrung him as auditor, I think Iowans will see a huge degree of higher quality in the governor’s office. Kim Reynolds was not the lowest rated governor in the country for no reason.
I believe we will see a major upgrade in quality in all offices that switched from an {R} to a {D}. We already see Christina Bohannan polling constituents on issues. I believe iowans could get used to having elected officials seeking their input on issues.
If you would like to review some of our past writings on the Republicans disastrous history on Medicaid you can out “privatized medicaid” in the search bar on the right hand side of this page. That should bring up most of those posts. Just to give you a flavor let me just pull a line or two from those bad old days:
“I felt that I was asking the questions the governor should have been asking,” he said in an interview at his Windsor Heights home. “… I guess I pushed back too hard or something.”
Hudson, 61, served as a lobbyist for then-Gov. Terry Branstad in the 1990s. He said Branstad, a fellow Republican, appointed him as co-chairman of the Medicaid council two years ago because of his experience caring for his profoundly disabled son, Matthew. Matthew, 30, is covered by Medicaid, the joint state and federal health-care program.
Hudson said he initially supported Branstad’s 2015 decision to hire private companies to manage care for the 600,000 Iowans on Medicaid. But he said he felt a duty to speak up when he saw those companies cut crucial services to his son and other Iowans with disabilities.
Hudson believes his detailed inquiries led Branstad’s successor, Reynolds, to deny his request for reappointment when his council term expired June 30.
Reynolds and other supporters of private Medicaid management say it is leading to more efficient, effective care. Critics say privatization has led to drastic cuts in services for disabled people and piles of unpaid bills to the agencies that provide their care.”
Be sure to read the whole story to see where it is at right now.
