Iowa now appears at the very bottom of a new federal report which ranks the amount of Medicare dollars that come to states. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says the news is deplorable.The average annual Medicare payment to Iowa seniors is two thousand nine-hundred-85 dollars. That’s 45-percent less than the national average of five thousand three-hundred-46 dollars.Harkin says Iowa’s losing more than a billion dollars a year. Seniors in some states, like Louisiana, get more than seven thousand dollars a year from Medicare, compared to less than three thousand for Iowa seniors.Harkin’s legislation would even the score for Iowa and 30 other states which he says are under-reimbursed. He says the bill would “send a lifeline” to struggling rural hospitals and health care providers. Among the measure’s features, it would ensure no state’s Medicare payments are greater than 105-percent of the national average and no state’s payments fall below 95-percent of the national average.
