This is a proposed political ad for our upcoming election to be paid for by a proposed political action committee named Pre-Existing Conditions Political Action Committee (PEC PAC).
PEC PAC commercial — Take One. Continue reading
Category Archives: Medicaid
Health Reform and a Primer for Democratic Presidential Candidates in Iowa
What every presidential Democratic candidate — many of whom will be speaking at the Iowa State Fair this week — should know about Iowa health reform:
1. Iowa suffered greatly by having a Republican-dominated state government (governor, Senate, and House) during the aftermath of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With a Republican governor and most recently a Republican Senate and House in Iowa, we had a miserable attempt at a Marketplace/Exchange; no support for our attempt at a health-care Co-Op (Co-Oportunity Health, which had 120,000 members in one year of operation); passage of association health plans, which allow for discrimination against persons with co-existing conditions; and, overall, an unbelievably negative atmosphere in general regarding anything that concerned the ACA.
Health Reform and Cuba
After four days in Cuba, seeing much countryside and touring three cities – Cienfuegos, Havana, and Santiago de Cuba, I have some reflections regarding health care, there and here in the United States.
Health Reform: 2019 and Representative Cindy Axne
As my Health Reform blog returns in a new format, I wish to comment on two more significant startups — a new year and a new 3rd District congresswoman from Iowa. In relationship to health reform, by which I mean improving health-care coverage for Americans and especially Iowans, I think these new developments have meaning.
In Iowa, a new year will start with health costs continuing to go up, the individual insurance market pricing people out of the ability to have health insurance, a state-legislated health-association insurance plan that legally allows for the discrimination of individuals with pre-existing conditions (further perverting the individual insurance market), and a besieged Medicaid for-profit managed-care scheme that will continue to reward these companies’ shareholders at the expense of Iowa patients.
Health Reform and Primum Non Nocere Revisited
Several months ago in this space, I discussed my concerns about a Trump presidency regarding the Latin phrase “primum non nocere,” which means “first do no harm.” Now, at the end of the 2018 Iowa Legislative session, I revisit this phrase to discuss my concerns about the results that this Republican-dominated Legislature and the Republican governor have created or are creating.
Health Reform and $2,000 per Month Health Insurance with a $10,000 Deductible (which Is Only Going to Get Worse)
2017. The year health reform took it on the chin. The year the middle-class, individual health-insurance buyer was abused by President Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party.
In Iowa, where we almost had no insurers in the individual market, we were left with one for 2018, Medica. One is not a choice. Who knows whether we will have insurers in 2019.
Health Reform and Continuity of Care
In the chaos of health-care efforts both nationally and in Iowa, today I seek to go back to two basic beliefs: 1) the hope of future generations to learn from past generations’ mistakes and 2) the value of continuity of care for primary health care and, ultimately, health care in general.
The U.S. Senate is now debating a tax-cut bill that includes eliminating the Affordable Care Act (ACA) individual mandate for health-care coverage — a basic tenet for true health-care reform — and, in Iowa, the for-profit, managed-care Medicaid fiasco now has one managed-care organization (MCO) leaving the state and another MCO not able to take new patients. These actions leave the state with only one MCO left to serve Medicaid patients. Given these realities, I shift gears by presenting to you a guest blogger.
She is a third-year medical student who recently spent a month with me in my clinic. She plans to be a pediatrician. I choose not to provide her name. Although she would allow it, I am not sure her medical school would.
Health Reform and Why Words Should Matter
Ah, words! Especially to writers, they are more precious than jewels, as essential as air, and powerful enough to create entire worlds. We chase them, massage or mince them, we roll them around in our mouths, savoring every delicious subtlety. Mostly, we love them.
~Tammy Letherer
Ms. Letherer wrote these words on a blog entry titled Why Words Matter (In and Out of the Locker Room), on October 16, 2016. In that post, she discussed her unhappiness with Donald Trump’s language regarding women.
In Iowa, former U.S. Representative Bruce Braley lost his Senate race with Joni Ernst in large part to an audiotape of his words to political contributors in Texas disparaging our senior senator, Chuck Grassley, describing him as “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school.”
This year’s health-care debate, centered on the Republicans’ efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), has led to many statements by Republican leaders in Iowa that should come back to haunt them this Halloween season and for seasons to come, as Bruce Braley’s words haunted him.
Health Reform and Spudnutz
I stood in line at 6:45 Sunday morning to purchase donuts at a very popular local donut shop — Spudnutz — at Lake Okoboji. The line of donut-seekers stretched far out the door. I did not receive donuts until 7:50 a.m. I waited more than an hour for donuts. (Yes, very good donuts). Nine people were working in that donut shop that once housed an auto mechanic shop.
If either the Senate bill or the House bill that was intended to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law, I fear none of those nine hardworking people would have health-care coverage in the future. For many of my patients and for, I believe, the employees of Spudnutz, I give thanks for the defeat of the Senate “skinny” repeal legislation.
Health Reform and Blood Money
In 2003, Iowa used part of its portion of the 1998 Tobacco Settlement monies to help build a new Supreme Court Building. During those years and later, Iowa Republican legislators sought to reduce the funding and scope of the Iowa Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Commission, which was created to use the settlement monies to help Iowans to either quit smoking or not start. I said at that time that using the Tobacco Settlement monies for any use other than health care was wrong. As a former chair of the Tobacco Commission, I viewed this money as blood money because it was being paid out to partially compensate for the death and disease that cigarettes had caused Iowans for many decades.
Similarly, I use the same term, blood money, today regarding the U.S. Republican House and Senate efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with a plan that will reduce wealthy individuals’ taxes by more than $600 billion over 10 years by taking a similar amount of money from the Medicaid program and from subsidies used to supplement poor and low-income individuals’ effort to pay for premiums in the individual health-insurance market.