Governor Branstad's plan to privatize Medicaid is very disconcerting and raises many questions; therefore Iowa needs to slow down on transformation of state Medicaid to Managed Care Medicaid by private, for-profit providers. At a minimum, there has to be legislative oversight to monitor Managed Care Medicaid before any transformation can occur.
Why is this important?
In February 2015, the Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) for Governor Branstad's Medicaid Modernization, putting the state Medicaid services in a private Managed Care system.
The start date is the earliest of any other such conversions. A rush to transform a human services program affecting around 560,000 Iowans, the state's biggest procurement by private entity(s), has the potential of causing severe negative effects.
It takes time to ensure that services fully benefiting the recipients are in place and won’t be withdrawn and avenues of communication are created for all parties to convey the program's purposes and outcomes.
