Grassley says parts of health care bill are needed

Despite his opposition to the bill, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said some parts of the Affordable Care Act are working.

Grassley received the National Association of Community Health Centers' “2011 Distinguished Community Defender Award” Tuesday at Linn Community Care, 1201 Third Ave. SE.

Ted Boesen, executive director of the Iowa Primary Care Association, said the award recognizes Grassley's contributions to community health centers over time.

“The centers help avoid care in more expensive settings by controlling chronic diseases,” Boesen said of the 14 federally funded sites in Iowa, including Linn Community Care.

Just this week, an award was announced that provides 500 health centers, including five in Iowa, with $42 million over three years for an Advanced Primary Care Practice demonstration to pay centers based on quality of care.

Those centers are in  Lamoni, Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and two in Des Moines.

The demonstration, which will reward clinics for such things as helping patients manage chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure, was created by the Affordable Care Act.

“It's cheaper to keep people well,” Grassley said, in acknowledging that the focus on preventive medicine is a move in the right direction.

Reimbursing doctors based on quality instead of quantity is among the measures he would keep in place, he said, but deciding exactly which of the law's 2,700 pages would be kept “is hard to say.”

Republican presidential candidates “will run on a repeal,” of the health care act, Grassley said. “Anyone will tell you there's got to be big changes made.”