On April 19, I attended a town hall meeting with our Iowa House Representative Cindy Golding. I attended because I am greatly concerned about how proposed work requirements for Medicaid will harm families, especially in rural areas.

Jobs are limited in many rural areas, so having reliable transportation is essential. Golding noted that households with Medicaid can now have two cars. She did not say how low-income families can afford the cost and upkeep on two cars.

Affordable child-care is scarce everywhere in Iowa but may be especially difficult to find in rural areas. Golding noted that the draft Medicaid work requirements bill has exceptions, but the only exception for families with young children is for those under 6. And there is no exemption for families of elementary-age children or older children with special needs who need care at home.

Golding noted that the legislature is working on a program for expanding childcare facilities and making them more affordable. How are families to manage after-school and sum- mer care until childcare becomes more available and affordable for them?

Affordable senior care is even more limited than childcare and there is no exception in the bill for those who are full-time caregivers of dependent adults. At a forum on the work requirements in Urbandale earlier this month, one woman noted that doing work outside her home is extremely difficult because she is sole caregiver for her 92-year-old mother.

According to the Gazette, the nonprofit health care reporting organization KFF has found that two-thirds of adults on Iowa Medicaid are already working. Among those not working are disabled and sick Iowans, caregivers, and full-time students. About 8 percent of Medicaid adults reported that they are retired, unable to find work, or were not working for another reason.

Iowa is on the verge of building a new bureaucracy to monitor the work status of all adults on Medicaid and putting an additional hurdle in front of families already experiencing the stress of low income.

Please let Golding ([email protected]) and our Senator Charlie McClintock ([email protected]) know we oppose work requirements for Medicaid. Ask Governor Reynolds (515-281-5211) not to sign the bill if it comes to her desk.

Suzette Astley
Mount Vernon