May 19, 2013

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Legislator makes appeal for “reassurance” from governor

May 17, 2013 By
Dave Heaton

Dave Heaton

Key legislators say there could be a breakthrough in negotiations over exactly how the state may ensure more low-income working Iowans get health care coverage.

Representative Dave Heaton, a Republican from Mount Pleasant who is involved in the negotiations, puts it like this:  ”I think reassurance from the governor’s office that he is respecting our work at trying to find a compromise between his plan and the Senate plan would be very helpful in helping us move forward.”

Democrats have been pushing to use available federal dollars to expand the government’s Medicaid program to provide coverage to up to 150,000 uninsured Iowans.

Republican Governor Terry Branstad’s proposed alternative creates a whole new “Healthy Iowa Plan” the is heavily subsidized by the state and federal government and requires a monthly premium payment of $12 from the roughly 90,000 uninsured Iowans it’s designed to cover.

“We believe that there are things going on now that are opening the door for us to determine whether or not the executive branch is serious,” says Senator Jack Hatch, a Democrat from Des Moines who is also involved in the private negotiations.

Hatch and Heaton are part of a 10-member committee that was appointed a couple of weeks ago to try to hammer out a compromise. Heaton says once everyone is on “the same wavelength” negotiations may take off.

“If you’re going to sit down and you’re really going to find a real compromise, it takes a lot of trust…that we really are sincere in what we are saying and doing in trying to find a final conclusion to what the differences are,” Heaton says, “and can trust each other that somebody isn’t going to go out and try to do something else.”

Legislators have a host of issues to resolve before their 2013 session can end — and the end won’t come this week. Lawmakers will come back to the capitol next week to continue debate on this topic and a host of others.

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Babies who survive congenital illness face treatment challenges as adults

May 15, 2013 By

Medical advances are allowing babies who used to die from congenital conditions early in life to live longer. That’s created a new problem as the doctors who help children born with issues like a heart defect or cystic fibrosis don’t always know how to help them once they become adults.

Twenty-two month old John Ten Paas of Pleasant Hill, is a good example. Ten Paas was born with what’s known as a hypo-plastic left artery — basically, an underdeveloped heart. During a check up at the University of Iowa Hospitals, his father Kyle says the condition would have been hopeless not that long ago.

“Twenty-five years ago we wouldn’t have John today, there were not options, there weren’t three surgeries,” Ten Paas says. “So medicine has come a long way, a lot of research, a lot of great things. Doctors say no one with the child’s particular condition has yet reached age 40.

Dr. Curt Daniels of the Ohio State University Medical Center specializes in congenital heart defects, but says many adults don’t seek the follow up care they need after those early surgeries because there aren’t enough doctors trained to care for them. “Neither the pediatric cardiologists or the adult cardiologists are trained in this field where now congenital heart disease patients are reaching adulthood at a rate of about 20-thousand new patients a year,” Daniels says.

He says the outcomes are not good for patients who don’t get proper follow-up care. Dr. Ricardo Flores is a pediatric lung specialist at Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines. He’s also treating a growing number of adult patients. “Their adult needs are really for me as a pediatrician foreign. I’m not comfortable with the world of pregnancies and high blood pressures,” Flores says.

Dr. Daniels is working to help address the problem by training more doctors and is an advisor to the Adult Congenital Heart Association. The University of Iowa is also reaching out to former adult congenital heart patients, urging them to seek a follow-up visit. Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines is working to develop an adult Cystic Fibrosis center – one of about three-dozen in the country.

It’s expected to open this summer, alongside an existing children’s center.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, News

King would take Obamacare over immigration bill

May 14, 2013 By

Iowa Congressman Steve King has been a leader in attempts to repeal the federal health care law — saying he despises the law he calls Obamacare. But King said today the Senate immigration bill is much worse.

“If it was somehow that there was an offer that you are going to get one or the other and you have to choose one, I would take Obamacare and try to live with that before I’d ever accept this amnesty plan,” King said. “Because this amnesty plan is far, far worse than Obamacare.”

King, a Republican from Kiron, said the difference in the two plans is that one can be fixed, but the other can’t.

“We can repeal Obamacare, we can over time pay for it, we can over time get back our doctor/patient relationship. But, if this amnesty goes through, there’s no undoing it. The genie on the left has escaped and he will be as amorphous as a puff of smoke. You will not get him back in that bottle and we will have to live with this in the American civilization and culture in perpetuity,” King said.

King made his comments at a news conference today with seven other congressmen who are also against the Senate immigration plan.

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Democrats make “skin in the game” offer to GOP on health care

May 9, 2013 By

There’s a new wrinkle in on-going statehouse discusses over how best to provide health care coverage to low-income Iowans who are uninsured today.

Democrats in the legislature who simply want to expand the existing Medicaid program to cover 150,000 more Iowans are offering to link co-pays for all current and future Medicaid recipients to health and wellness initiatives. Senator Jack Hatch, a Democrat from Des Moines, says Democrats would waive those co-pays for those who get regular check-ups and take steps to improve their health, like quitting smoking or losing weight, but a trip to the emergency room for a minor health issue would require a co-pay.

“We’re going to ask patients to participate in their own health care,” Hatch says. “…The Republicans have talked about ‘skin in the game.’ We’re going to include that in our proposal.”

Republican Governor Terry Branstad’s “Healthy Iowa Plan” requires a monthly premium payment of $10, but premiums could be reduced for those who take steps to improve their health. Senator David Johnson, a Republican from Ocheyedan, says there’s “still a long way to go” before the gap between Democrats and Republicans is bridged.

“It’s opened the door a crack, I would say,” Johnson says of this latest offer from Democrats.

Johnson is a member of the 10-member conference committee appointed to find a compromise.

“We’ve got one week left to go in this session according to leadership,” Johnson says. “This is some heavy lifting that has to be done in order to reach an agreement, so anything’s possible — including a special session.”

Senate President Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque, is expressing optimism.

“I think we are actually moving a little closer to the middle,” Jochum told reporters this afternoon, “and I am hopeful that we are going to find some kind of a solution to this before we adjourn.”

Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal says he’s ”beyond optimistic” that lawmakers can wrap up the work of the 2013 legislative session next week.

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U-I research says health research faces biggest hit from sequestration

May 9, 2013 By

The University of Iowa’s top research administrator predicts the automatic federal budget cuts known as “sequestration” will affect health research projects most severely. U-I Vice President for Research, Daniel Reed, says the anticipation of those cuts is producing some immediate effects.

“We’ve certainly seen it in stress among both the faculty and staff in terms of the implications. Most of the effects, however, are more likely to be felt not with existing research projects, but with resubmission of new proposals whose decisions will be made in the coming months and over the next year,” Reed explains.

Reed says the impact on federally-funded health research projects would hit hard in the Iowa City campus, because they dominate the research dollars. But he says it will impact other areas on campus and other state schools will also feel the impact on research projects.

“Remember that sequestration was a roughly five-percent, across-the-board cut in research,” Reed says. “So, that affects researchers in engineering, the basic sciences, it touches on the arts and humanities as well. So, everyone is feeling the effects. But, in terms of dollar effects, it will be most definitely felt in health affairs.”

Reed says the anticipated sequestration cuts are intensifying an already competitive environment for winning federal research dollars.

“To put it in perspective from when I began as a researcher — more years ago than I’d like to admit — the probability of writing a successful research proposal in many disciplines was about one-in-two. It’s now down to, at best, one-in-ten. And so, it’s much more competitive than it was in the past. That’s true across the board, though, not just in health affairs, but in every discipline,” Reed says.

Faculty and staff whose salaries are paid by research grants –or so-called “soft money”– could find their jobs cut if funding isn’t renewed. Reed says that’s causing considerable stress among those researchers. In contrast, Creighton University economist, Ernie Goss says his survey of business managers in the midwest shows little impact from the sequestration cuts.

Filed Under: Education, Health & Medicine, News Tagged With:

Groups offer critique of governor’s “Healthy Iowa Plan” (AUDIO)

May 8, 2013 By
Anthony Carroll

Anthony Carroll

Three groups that have been lobbying for Iowa Democrats’ plan to expand Medicaid to cover up to 150,000 more uninsured Iowans are re-focusing their message.

The groups released a map today showing how much Iowans in each county will pay in property taxes to support the Republican alternative — Governor Terry Branstad’s Healthy Iowa Plan.

Linda Hinton, the government relations manager for the Iowa State Association of Counties, spoke during a statehouse news conference.

“Medicaid expansion will serve more Iowans than the governor’s plan and will not direct local property tax dollars away from their intended purpose,” she said.

The governor’s plan is financed with $85 million in local property taxes. Anthony Carroll, AARP’s Iowa associate state director, said AARP members are being shown another map which indicates only a handful of Iowa hospitals would qualify to provide the care — so uninsured Iowans in far southwest Iowa’s Fremont County, for example, would have to go to Des Moines to visit a doctor under the governor’s plan.

“Really now it’s about showing the differences to people who aren’t maybe directly impacted by low income Iowans. They don’t have a family or a friend member (who is uninsured) and when you talk about especially your local dollars being used for something that may not provide local coverage, that’s a sharp difference,” Carroll said. “That’s what’s new here.”

Dr. Richard Deming.

Dr. Richard Deming.

Dr. Richard Deming, an oncologist in Des Moines, is part of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.

He says a major flaw in the governor’s plan is that only a handful of health care systems that win a special “accountable care organization” designation will provide the care to Iowans enrolled in the “Healthy Iowa Plan.”

“I’m all about personal responsibility and accountability, but if you don’t have access to health care, accountability and responsibility is really a moot point,” Deming said.

The governor has repeatedly said Iowa can’t rely on the federal government and has to devise its own plan for covering the uninsured. Branstad’s plan, unlike Medicaid expansion, would be financed with a combination of 42 percent state resources and 58 percent federal funding.

Democrats say the federal government will provide all of the money for Medicaid expansion for the first three years and 90 percent after that. Branstad argues Medicaid doesn’t require “healthy choices” while his plan does.

See the comparison map here: Medicaid expansion comparison PDF

AUDIO of final 17 minutes of news conference.

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Researcher says new teen driving rules address concerns

May 8, 2013 By

Changes to the teen driving law that go into effect in January will require teen drivers to have their learner’s permit for a year before receiving their full license, and also restrict the number of teen passengers that ride along. The legislation was updated following a number of vehicle safety studies.

That included work from Daniel McGehee and his team at the Public Policy Center at the University of Iowa. “Every eight days in Iowa, we lose a teen in a car crash. This was really the hardest one for our team, because it became fairly personal,” McGehee says.

The study found a key factor in fatal car crashes involving teen drivers. “We found that 72-percent of teen fatalities had other teen passengers on board. So, it’s very striking to see each one of these fatal crashes.”

The law will allow teen drivers to only have one non-family member under the age of 18 with them in the car for the first six months. McGehee says requiring drivers to have a permit for one year will gives parents a chance to drive with their teen through all of Iowa’s seasons.

“You really don’t want them to be driving by themselves in that first snow or that first ice, or that first thunderstorm,” McGehee says. A study by the U.S. News and World Report ranked Iowa 49th in the nation for teen drivers’ safety based on state laws, road conditions, and fatal accidents.

Filed Under: Education, Fires/Accidents/Disasters, Health & Medicine, News Tagged With: ,
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