Erin Murphy

Staffing agencies, whose rates would be capped by the bill, warn the proposal could cause nurses to leave the agencies and thus worsen the nursing home worker shortage

Advocates hope the governor’s plan to combine mental health and substance use treatment networks will improve access for Iowans. But some worry that until other funding issues are addressed — like low Medicaid reimbursement rates — “We're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Iowa Business Council’s annual Competitive Dashboard reports labor force, education, health insurance ‘overperforming’,’ with diversity, obesity percentage and number of mental health providers ‘underperforming.’

Proposal to increase penalties for non-consensual termination of a pregnancy could have chilling impact on in vitro fertilization, Democrats argued

Iowa lawmakers already have missed their target for setting state funding for schools by nearly two weeks.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office says the state will hire a new partner, citing conflicts of interest in the program as operated by AEAs, but one recent program worker pushed back at that characterization.

Republican legislators in the Iowa House killed the bill, which was uniformly opposed by medical experts and organizations

Iowa House Republicans’ plan would increase starting teacher pay to $50K, add funding to boost salaries for veteran teachers, and establish a $15 minimum wage for support staff

The Iowa Supreme Court pieced together so-called legislative immunity from multiple places in the Iowa Constitution, and ruled it extends to communications with third parties

In Iowa, there were nearly 13,000 fraud reports in 2023 that resulted in financial losses of $42.6 million.

The proposed bill would place more responsibility for bargaining units’ recertification with public employers; labor members and advocates call it a ‘union-busting’ bill

Republicans say religious freedom has been weakened by court decisions; Democrats say bill would give individuals license to discriminate

Republicans say the proposal expands post-partum care for low-income Iowans who need it most, while Democrats say it expands care for some low-income Iowans at the expense of coverage for others.

The first ‘funnel’ eliminated some bills from lawmaker consideration this year

On this week’s episode, it was Funnel Week at the Iowa Legislature, and frankly I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to think about anything else, so that’s all we’re going to talk about.