Medicaid Archives » Lynda Waddington

01Apr 2019 by Lynda Waddington

Why state leaders needed to step back from work requirements

Gazette Column

State work requirements for Medicaid recipients appear to be scuttled, at least for this year. That’s a good thing because research and experience show the numbers don’t add up for participants or for taxpayers. The bill passed by the Iowa Senate, Senate File 538, required the Department of Human Services to petition the federal government for permission to implement Medicaid requirements beyond those already in place at the federal level. Those new stipulations centered on work requirements. Specifically, “able-bodied” recipients would need to work or volunteer a minimum of 20 hours each week, and government officials would need to make larger investments in software and staffing in order to track the changes with the increased veracity required by the bill. Sticks of chalk sit around a partially completed drawing of the…

07Jan 2018 by Lynda Waddington

Use #IamMedicaidIowa to share experiences

Gazette Column

When Iowa lawmakers consider what should be done to improve Iowa Medicaid, Disability Rights Iowa hopes people will be their primary focus. To that end, the organization is encouraging Iowans to go online and share their stories in an #IamMedicaidIowa awareness campaign. Jane Hudson, executive director of Disability Rights Iowa, told Iowa Public Radio the idea was hatched following a forum last month that highlighted “turmoil” in the program. “Many people came up to me and said: ‘Politicians need to see our faces. They are just thinking about the numbers,’ ” Hudson says. “ … That’s why we’re doing this.” [caption id="attachment_1793" align="alignleft" width="500"] Disability Rights Iowa is encouraging Iowans to hold a #IamMedicaidIowa sign, take a photo and tell their story to lawmakers.[/caption] A special announcement on the Disability Rights Iowa website is more…

22May 2017 by Lynda Waddington

Iowa winnowing of health care begins

Gazette Column

News that health care advocates had been dreading came Thursday: Planned Parenthood of the Heartland will shutter a third of it’s Iowa clinics. Locations in Bettendorf, Sioux City, Burlington and Keokuk will close at the end of June. Only one of those locations offered abortion services, and it will continue to provide those procedures until the building is sold. Soon to be lost is what more than 70 percent of Iowans supported — access to family planning services like contraceptives, prenatal vitamins and cancer or other disease screenings. More than 14,000 Iowans utilized the clinics now slated for closure. Planned Parenthood clinics statewide serve nearly half of residents who use publicly-funded family planning services. Looking only at the four counties impacted by the closures, Planned Parenthood clinics served, at a…

01May 2017 by Lynda Waddington

Rural health programs face September deadline

Gazette Column

No doubt you’ve heard about the Women’s March and the March for Science. Let me tell you why more than 1,000 doctors marched on Washington earlier this month. Physicians and medical students converged on Capitol Hill to advocate for continued funding of teaching health centers, which offer medical residency programs in community settings. It’s one of the programs under the umbrella of the $7.2 billion Community Health Centers Fund, slated to end Sept. 30 unless Congress takes action. The combined programs support local access to medical care for thousands of Iowans and millions of Americans. They're especially vital for rural health. Teaching health centers — one of which is located in Des Moines — provide medical residency programs in community settings. Residents are trained in family and internal medicine, pediatrics,…

04Apr 2017 by Lynda Waddington

Disability isn’t so easy, even for the desperate

Gazette Blog

As much as I need to stop thinking about the Washington Post story on Social Security disability benefits reprinted in The Gazette on Sunday, I’m having trouble letting it go. As the youngest child of elderly parents — my mother went to the doctor for concerns about menopause only to discover she was pregnant with me — I grew up on Social Security dependent benefits. So, in addition to my parents’ Social Security retirement checks, our family received a little more than $200 each month earmarked for me. In order to better make ends meet, my father and mother worked odd jobs. Until bone cancer made it impossible, my mother took in sewing projects. My dad mowed lawns and did handyman or mechanic work when he could find it. During…

05Feb 2017 by Lynda Waddington

Extreme measures rarely last

Gazette Column

In politics, there’s at least one thing you can always count on: Power exists on a pendulum. Public sentiment is always shifting. For years this inconvenient fact kept most politicians, and especially the dominant political parties, tilting toward center. They’ve understood that whenever massive force is applied in one direction, the back swing is as equally severe. Iowa’s Republican Majority is brazenly testing fate. [caption id="attachment_411" align="alignleft" width="640"] Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, gives opening remarks Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, at the start of debate on Senate File 2. The bill ends a long-standing federal-state cooperative program for family planning, and creates a solely state-funded program. The new program, if approved, will exclude health providers that provide abortion services. The bill passed the Iowa Senate on a party-line vote and will…

05Sep 2016 by Lynda Waddington

‘Precedent’ no reason to not seek answers

Gazette Column

We give cover to those with whom we agree Trying to name the political elephant that won’t budge from the corner and keeps mucking up the floor? His name is Precedent, and he appears to be here for the long haul. I’m not exactly sure when he arrived, but I do know what makes him thrive. And, collectively, we’ve been serving him buckets upon buckets of scandalous food. For a prime example, let’s travel back in time to 2007, when the George W. Bush administration was taking heat for dismissing at least eight U.S. attorneys. When Congress requested the White House release administrative documents related to the U.S. attorneys, the public found out that White House staffers had been conducting official business on private servers run by the Republican National…

11Apr 2016 by Lynda Waddington

Recovery slow for Congolese immigrants

Gazette Column

Caring for dead, injured depleting community's resources They had only been in the United States for a few weeks when an encounter with a patch of ice in the early morning hours of Feb. 4 changed everything. Nancy Lusemo, Serge Baketela and Mirielle Mbambi were three of nine people carpooling in a minivan and on their way to work in Tama when the vehicle lost control on the ice. They survived, which should make them the “lucky” ones, but the moniker smacks of indecency. Three were transported to area hospitals and released relatively quickly. Three others — Michka Kebeya, Platini Namputu and Dickson Mandiki — died in the four-vehicle crash. Kebeya was Lusemo’s husband. The couple and their five-year-old son had only been in Iowa about two months. All of…

14Feb 2016 by Lynda Waddington

Pair health insurance with access

Gazette Column

More of Iowa’s kids have health insurance. Now we need a more robust system that allows them to use it. A report released Thursday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says between 2013 and 2014, about 13,000 more Iowa youngsters received health insurance, mainly through their eligibility for public insurance plans like Hawk-i or Medicaid. Increased adult access to Medicaid programs came via millions in funding from the Affordable Care Act. Researchers believe that as adults discovered new Medicaid options for themselves, youngsters were also signed up for coverage. In this report, Iowa claims the fifth lowest uninsured rate for children (3.2 percent) — a significant move in the right direction from it’s earlier placement of 13th in the nation (5 percent). Many state residents and health care advocates worked…

17Aug 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Branstad, GOP hopefuls differ on local control

Gazette Column

Education shortfalls are a manufactured crisis Spend a little time with the 2016 GOP presidential candidates and you’ll hear their plans to loosen government’s reins and provide local leaders more flexibility. If such goals are successful, however, its doubtful Iowans existing under the Branstad administration will experience relief. Debates about local control are as regular as general elections, and equally effective. But that hasn’t stopped all levels of politicians from sounding an alarm. For instance, in March 1953, then-U.S. House Majority Leader Charlie Halleck, an Indiana Republican who died in 1986, spoke before a joint session of the Iowa Legislature on the risk of expansion beyond “the smallest unit of government capable of handling the job.” “With every transfer of responsibility from Des Moines or Indianapolis to Washington, there is…