Iowa Republican Legislature Is Running Amok: No Oversight

When former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad privatized Medicaid and put Medicaid in the hands of for-profit management companies, that was bad enough. The CEOs of those companies make multi-million dollar salaries. The United Health Insurance Company's CEO's salary is over $66 million annually. But now the Republican majority in the Iowa legislature wants to further hide what privatized Medicaid has done to Medicaid patients, disguise what the human costs and financial "savings" are, and how many medical providers have gone out of business or laid off staff because providers are either not paid in a timely way or not paid at all.

According to the 2/10/2018 Des Moines Register, "Iowa would eliminate many of the reporting requirements behind its privatized Medicaid program under a legislative bill introduced this week by the state's human services department."

That's Jerry Foxhoven, folks, the head of the Department of Human Services, whose social workers allowed two 16-year-old girls to starve to death through lack of proper oversight by DHS and the police. The two girls were "home schooled" (confined, tortured, and starved to death) without appropriate or effective oversight. And who is Foxhoven's boss? Gov. Kim Reynolds, who was Terry Branstad's shadow while he was still in office, just as Adam Gregg is currently Kim Reynolds' shadow. It's kind of weird, really, the way Terry never showed up without Kim, and Kim never shows up without Adam.

"Specifically, the quarterly reports that publicly measure program integrity and outcomes would be reduced to once a year and savings reports would be eliminated."

In addition, House Study Bill 632 would eliminate a requirement that makes the agency responsible to ensure the private companies continue benefits during an appeals process.

The majority Republicans in the governor's office and both houses of the Iowa legislature are running amok. There wasn't any good news about privatized Medicaid before. We never got an official, audited report of the so-called financial "cost savings" gained by privatizing Medicaid. How do we know there were any? If there were, the Register reports that those "savings," if they exist, turned out to be "80% less than predicted." And don't the human costs of dead patients due to cuts in care and denial of care, as well as the loss of out-of-business medical providers count for something?

When the Legislature's Health Policy Oversight committee was supposed to meet twice a year, it didn't. It met in December 2016, but as of August 2017, it hadn't met at all.

This is corruption on its face. No transparency means there's something to hide, and Republicans are doing their best to cover up whatever it is they're hiding. Lawsuits abound.

This is not even to mention Republican legislators' unequal "tweaking"/i.e., gutting of collective bargaining rights for public employees in 2017 as soon as they reached majority status, making it harder for unions to organize and stay certified, rolling back minimum wage raises in the counties that approved them, proposing bills to make it harder for women to get no-contact orders to protect themselves against domestic abusers (thanks Sandy Salmon, a Republican legislator from Janesville); proposing bills to reinstate the death penalty; a bill to teach the Bible in public schools (remember the separation of church and state?); a bill allowing parents and others to bring guns onto school property when dropping off their kids; and a bill to make abortion a class D felony when a fetal heartbeat can be discerned, which can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, often before a woman, who may be mentally ill and impoverished, knows she's pregnant. The abortion doctor may be fined $500 and go to jail for five years if such a bill passed.

Republicans, now in the majority, are proving they are incapable of governing in a reasonable and constitutional manner. They've declared war on organized labor, war on women, war on the poor, war on children dependent on Medicaid, war on the constitutional separation of church and state, and war on physicians who perform abortions. As long as Roe v. Wade stands, outlawing abortion is unconstitutional.

I've seen enough. Have you? I'd like to vote for as many Democrats, especially women, as possible into office and purge the Republican patriarchs from office.

To get rid of Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, who fired Kirsten Anderson within seven hours of her complaining about being sexually harassed in the Republican caucus and who continues to claim that he fired her for poor work performance, and then, as is common practice in state as well as federal government, billed taxpayers for Anderson's $1.75 million lawsuit for sex discrimination, donate to and vote for (if you can):

https://www.tracyfreese.com/

She's a tall, feisty redhead with a good sense of humor. You'll like her. She's running for the Senate in District 25.

To get rid of Sen. Roby Smith (R-Davenport), who is for voter IDs, which have a tendency to suppress voter turnout by people who are poor and lack proper identification, donate to and voter for (if you can):

http://gleasonforsenate.com/

To get rid of Republican Sen. Julian Garrett, who's been pushing for the death penalty since at least 2015 and wants a bill passed that requires no less than a 5-2 vote in the Iowa Supreme Court on constitutional issues, which is probably unconstitutional in and of itself, donate to and vote for (if you can):

http://brennerforiowasenate.com/

She's a retired English teacher and both of her parents were school teachers.

To get rid of Sen. Mark Chelgren (R-Ottumwa), whose claim of a degree from Sizzler U., which is a restaurant certification, not a university degree, the idiocy of which claim made NBC News and the Chicago Tribune, and who proposed a bill to freeze university faculty until faculty were half Republican and half Democrat, donate to and vote for (if you can):

https://marystewartforiowasena...

Mary Stewart is on the far right in the photo you'll see in the link above. I met her at a women's leadership get-together on Jan. 4th, where I also met Amber Gustafson:

https://amberforiowa.com/

who is running against Republican President of the Senate Jack Whitver. Amber Gustafson is a farm gal whose father died when she was 13 after he lost his farm. She has a compelling life story. Without the help of youth opportunity programs and scholarships like the ones that helped me when I was a young girl living in a rural area of upstate New York, she never would have gone to college or come through the crushing poverty that she, her sister, and her single mother found themselves in before and after her father died. She noted at her fundraiser at the Oltoffs' house in Iowa City that she doesn't think as many opportunities exist for young people today as existed for girls like her and me. I agree. And there should be.