Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Federal stimulus for Medicaid has boosted jobs and incomes in Iowa while meeting the immediate health needs of vulnerable Iowans enduring a recession, researchers with the Iowa Fiscal Partnership reported today.
“Increased Medicaid spending has an economic benefit for the state of Iowa far greater than the federal government’s initial investment,” explained David Swenson, an economist at Iowa State University and co-author of the new policy brief.
The brief, “Just What the Doctor Ordered,” estimates that Iowa, due to Medicaid funding provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, has seen a $252 million increase in the value of goods and services produced in the state during fiscal year 2009, and $114 million in income for 2,354 workers in created or saved jobs.
In addition, Iowa is poised to see a $449 million increase in the value of goods and services produced in the state for fiscal year 2010, and $203 million in income for 4,206 workers.
“Every federal dollar of economic stimulus invested in Medicaid yields about $1.68 in total output for the state of Iowa. Out of that dollar, 76 cents is returned to Iowa workers in the form of wages and salaries and incomes of small business owners,” Swenson said.
The federal government allocated $150 million for fiscal 2009 and an estimated $268 million for fiscal 2010 for Iowa’s Medicaid program, which is jointly funded by the state and federal government. Under the stimulus package, the federal government boosted its share of the funding to help states keep pace with increased demands for assistance during the recession.
Molly Fleming and Peter Fisher, both researchers with the non-partisan Iowa Policy Project, helped co-author the brief and believe that the Medicaid funding boost has been important to states and their economies.
The brief notes that in May 2009, Medicaid provided essential health care coverage for 420,587 state residents, or nearly 1 in 7 Iowans. Enrollment has risen 13 percent from October 2007.
“In a recession, revenues fall just when more people need to rely on Medicaid and other safety-net services,” Fleming said. “If states don’t have revenues, they may have to make major cuts to Medicaid to keep their budgets balanced.
“The recovery — or stimulus — legislation was designed to help states avoid those kinds of cuts, which not only could hurt people who really need help, but also could hurt the economy generally. Budget cuts by the state would aggravate a recession, because that lost spending causes further reductions in household incomes as people lose jobs or hours at work. Then they have less to spend.”
The Iowa Fiscal Partnership is a join budget and tax policy initiative of IPP in Iowa City and another nonpartisan organization, the Child and Family Policy Center in Des Moines.
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