By Tom Chapman
For The Catholic Messenger
With the passage of the first legislative deadline on March 7, the Iowa Catholic Conference (ICC) turns its attention to priority items that are now eligible for debate on the floor, including:
- Human smuggling bill —oppose.
- Burdensome changes to Medicaid/SNAP — oppose.
- Protect conscience rights for medical professionals and for foster/adoptive parents — support.
- Access to preschool by community providers — support.
- Showing students a video on fetal development — support.
- Addressing the black market in abortion pills — support.
- Reducing term of probation for those who are working or in an educational program — support.
- Treating adoptive parents of a child up to age 6 the same as biological parents — support.
Please look at our alerts in the ICC Action Center
(votervoice.net/ICC/home). We make it easy for you to contact your legislator.
Last week’s action at the State Capitol contained some good news:
- HF 878, a bill to limit “payday lending” interest rates to 36%, passed out of the House Commerce Committee shortly after its introduction.
- A “work without worry” bill, HSB 241, establishes a program to allow those who have disabilities and Medicaid coverage to work without losing health care coverage. The bill passed the House Health and Human Services Committee.
- The HHS committee also advanced HF 807, which would require HHS to create a list of perinatal hospices and encourage medical professionals to inform the family that perinatal hospice services are available. These hospices help families where the baby is very sick and will most likely die soon after birth.
Disappointing news
- Unfortunately, bills creating additional work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP, HSB 248 and SF 363, passed a committee in both chambers. The bills also say that if the federal government does not allow the state to put the new requirements in place, the Medicaid expansion program for 180,000 Iowans would end.
On a related matter, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association, and Catholic Charities USA have written a letter urging Congress to protect and strengthen the Medicaid program. The groups said that, “policies like work reporting requirements have shown clear evidence of creating artificial barriers to care, generating paper work and bureaucracy while doing little to support people looking for work. These requirements also fail to recognize that most people on Medicaid already work and ignore the realities of low-wage work, caregiving responsibilities, and health limitations, and studies have shown they frequently result in loss of coverage for eligible individuals, including children.”
Many bills died on the March 7 deadline, including:
- HSB 187, which was dropped from the House Judiciary Committee agenda. The bill would have required all local law enforcement agencies to sign agreements with ICE.
- SF 320, a bill to bring the death penalty back to Iowa.
- SSB 1195 and HSB 286, creating a state crime of unauthorized sleeping, camping or long-term shelter on public property.
- SJR 6, a bill proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, did not come up for a vote in the Senate State Government Committee. We were wrong last week when we said it was “funnel-proof,” although since it relates to taxes, it could come back as a Ways and Means bill.
The Common Sense Institute released a report on how Education Savings Accounts are working in Iowa. In its first two years, the program has increased the number of Iowa K-12 students who have access to the school of their choice.
(Tom Chapman is executive director of the Iowa Catholic Conference, iowacatholicconference.org)
