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.
The Iowa Senate is tentatively scheduled to debate a sweeping government reorganization bill Monday, with the aim of cutting millions of dollars from the state’s budget.
Senate File 2088, known as the State Government Reorganization and Efficiency Act, is designed to help close a gaping budget hole projected by some to total nearly $1 billion. It was built around a private a consulting firm’s December recommendations to Gov. Chet Culver, which offered suggestions on how to improve government efficiencies, improve methods to recover revenue owed to state government and eliminate or consolidate a number of state organizations.
Culver’s 2011 budget plan is built around the savings promised in the consultant’s report, which are expected to total nearly $350 million.
One of the more controversial aspects of the plan is a provision that would remove existing protections for psychiatric medications purchased through Medicaid. Under current state law, physicians who prescribe the medications for Medicaid patients are free to select the drugs believed to best serve the individual patient. New language in the bill removes the exception for psychiatric medications and calls for only the drugs by pharmaceutical companies that have entered into an agreement with the state to be placed on the preferred list.
Mental health advocates say that even though the change would result in short-term savings, estimated at $400,000 the first year and $1.3 million over five years, it sets the table for larger long-term expenditures and the potential of massive human suffering.
They contend that individuals with a mental illness who are unable to obtain prescriptions both tolerated by the body and effective for their symptoms are much more likely to become a larger taxpayer burden due to homelessness, emergency room visits, incarceration or committed medical care.
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