Working through marathon sessions that lasted to nearly dawn, the 2009 Iowa General Assembly finally adjourned over the weekend of April 25.

The 2009 session was marked by contentious debates on a variety of issues, some of which passed and many of which did not. Highlights of the year of interest to the Iowa hospital community included:

• Restoration of the proposed 2.3 percent cut to hospital inpatient Medicaid payments. Coupled with the federal match, restoration of this cut means approximately $6 million annually for Iowa’s Prospective Payment System hospitals.
• Passage of IHA-sponsored legislation making a variety of code changes for Iowa’s public hospitals.
• Passage of health care reform legislation that creates a process for future funding of an increased physician residency in Iowa as well as legislation that creates a mechanism for future payment of nonparticipating hospitals within the IowaCare program.
• Preservation of the ability of hospital maintenance workers to carry out routine plumbing work within the facility.
• Failure of labor initiatives such as “fair share,” open-scope collective bargaining, employee choice of physician in workers’ compensation cases and setting prevailing wages for public construction projects to gain legislative approval.
• Failure of bills seeking to change Iowa’s Certificate of Need laws, prescribe charity care levels for hospitals and setting a health care whistleblower mandate.

Thanks go out to our Iowa hospital advocates

Thanks to the hard work of hospital advocates across the state, IHA had another successful legislative session. Hundreds of personal phone calls and visits, coupled with more than 15,000 e-mails going into the General Assembly on a variety of health care topics, helped push the message that hospitals have an essential role in the Iowa economy and quality of life.

Stay tuned for continued policy coverage

In the interim, IHA will be posting state and federal policy information on the IHA Policy Blog and looks forward to receiving comments from readers on the topics. As always, work is never done, and IHA is already working on the 2010 Legislative Agenda so stay tuned… More to come!

[Iowa House of Representatives Chamber photo courtesy of Iowa House Democrats]