Iowa Medicaid is efficient program

Growth in Medicaid program costs is primarily due to increased enrollment and the injection of more federal dollars. A big part of that increase, more than 100,000 Iowans, came with Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. That expansion was signed into law by Gov. Terry Branstad.

In fact, with about 4 percent administrative costs, Iowa Medicaid is an extremely efficient program. It won't stay that way if it is privatized because the managed care companies can as much as triple that cost.

Following 39 other states in privatizing Medicaid can hardly be called 'modern.” What is groundbreaking and innovative are the Iowa Accountable Care Organizations, embraced by major payers like Wellmark and Medicare. But similar progress with Medicaid will be trashed as the managed care organizations set their own agenda.

Access to care is hardly a 'burden” to Medicaid beneficiaries with complex medical. The MCOs don't have a patent on coordinated care - it happens every day in Iowa hospitals and is supported by existing state and federal programs that, again, the MCOs will abandon.

And like the MCOs, Jimmy Centers makes many promises about 'managed care,” but what is really being managed is payment. In state after state, privatized Medicaid has failed to increase access to care, improve quality of care or save money. It simply creates a middleman who, in the case of Iowa, stands to make a half-billion dollars from Medicaid.

Kirk Norris, President and CEO

Iowa Hospital Association