Iowa would lose health money early on, federal study says

A new Trump administration analysis shows Iowa initially would lose health care money under the latest Republican proposal to undo the Affordable Care Act.

The analysis, which Axios and the Washington Post reported came from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is the latest in a string of reports trying to predict the impact of the proposed Cassidy-Graham health care overhaul. The other projections come from private organizations.

This latest analysis measures how block grant funding would be allocated among the states in the individual years of 2020 and 2026, when the proposed law would be in effect.

The figures say that Iowa would lose $59 million in 2020, but by 2026, the state would gain $5 million over projected funding levels under the current health care law.

The GOP legislation, authored by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., would eliminate Obamacare's premium subsidies and Medicaid expansion funding, beginning in 2020. It would then reduce the funding levels and repackage the money into block grants to be sent to the states.

Each state would have more leeway in creating its own health plan and rules for insurers.

California and New York would be the biggest losers, according to the new analysis. The biggest gainers would be states, including Texas, that didn't expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. That finding is similar to the private analyses.

Iowa fits somewhere toward the middle. The various studies, which use different methods and all have a level of uncertainty, predicting somewhat different results for Iowa.