Iowa Ideas 2025

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Health Care

Delivery of high-quality medical care and wellness practices to Iowa communities

SESSION 1
Access to Medicaid

The future of Medicaid – and who will be covered – is uncertain at the state and federal levels. How might Medicaid cuts or work requirements for Medicaid recipients change who can access coverage? This session will explore how Medicaid cuts could affect patients and what impacts could this have on public health?

October 02, 2025 at 9:35AM
SESSION 2
Challenges with health care staffing in Iowa

The Iowa Legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds have attempted to address the shortage of physicians with proposals that would consolidate student loan repayment programs, leverage federal funding to create new residency spots, and prioritize Iowa students for medical school admission. How can you continue to attract people into all health care roles, and what do you do to increase wages among some of the medical support staff?

October 02, 2025 at 10:40AM
SESSION 3
Empowering the mental health providers for a diverse population

When people need mental health care, it’s important they find a professional they can trust. Studies have shown having a mental health care professional whose lived experiences are similar to the patient’s can build empathy and reduce feelings of isolation. What can be done to encourage more LGBTQ people, refugees, people of color and people in recovery to join the profession? How might this better serve Iowans?  

October 02, 2025 at 11:45AM
SESSION 4
What it means to have AI in health care

Artificial intelligence, when used responsibly, can be a powerful tool. It’s present in almost every part of our society, including health care. This session will explore how health care professionals are using AI, what that means for patients, and what the future may hold for AI in medicine.

October 02, 2025 at 1:55PM
SESSION 5
Weighing the cost and benefits of anti-obesity drugs

Anti-obesity drug usage in Iowa appears to be higher than in neighboring states, and Iowans will likely get a better idea of financial impacts as the Iowa HHS and DAS are tasked with reviewing the costs, effectiveness and eligibility requirements for state programs. What’s drawing so many Iowans to take them and what are the potential long-term impacts to be mindful of?

October 02, 2025 at 3:00PM
SESSION 6
Cost of Prescription Drugs and Pricing Transparency

The majority of Americans take at least one prescription each day, and nearly one-third are concerned about being able to pay for the drugs they need, recent polling suggests. While there’s been some movement around drug price transparency policies, there are still significant policy fights playing out. We’ll look at what impacts are coming from Iowa’s recently enacted bill barring pharmacy benefit managers from steering patients to specific pharmacies and requires PBMs to apy unaffiliated pharmacies at the same rates they do for ones in their networks.

October 03, 2025 at 9:40AM
SESSION 7
Medicaid and Hospitals

Iowa hospitals are in a period of "uncertainty" as changes to Medicaid enacted as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill take effect. Is a fund allocating billions to some rural hospital losses easing concerns? What does this mean for the state’s rural providers? We’ll unpack the changes in Medicaid and what it means for Iowa’s hospitals and providers and how those changes might impact you.

October 03, 2025 at 11:50AM

Health Care Articles

Doctors: Raise tobacco tax to cut cancer in Iowa

State lawmakers should increase taxes on tobacco and restrict the use of indoor tanning beds by minors to help reduce new instances of cancer in Iowa, according to a Thursday Iowa Ideas panel of experts. “The public health evidence would say that the single biggest, most effective change that we could make in Iowa is to raise the tobacco tax by ...
Iowa Ideas: Staffing shortages, flat funding impacting patient care

The question that wakes Iowa’s health care leaders up at night is whether they will have enough nurses and other staff to care for Iowa’s patients and long-term care residents. “The most challenging issue that is systemic is the workforce shortage,” said Angela Van Pelt, Iowa’s long-term care ombudsman. “In our world, it’s people who work in lo...
Iowa hospitals reflect on lessons learned from pandemic, derecho

Emergency preparedness plans take into account unconnected disasters taking place at the same time. But the confluence of the derecho and pandemic — and the need to follow public health measures that, at times, clashed with typical natural disaster response — placed an additional burden on Cedar Rapids hospitals.
Focusing on mental health following COVID-19

Even as much of the nation began to emerge from the pandemic this summer, some have struggled to feel as if things are back to normal. The percentage of Americans reporting feelings of anxiety or depression spiked this past year as the COVID-19 spread across the globe and into the United States by early March 2020.
Iowa’s public health workforce is burned out. Can it recover?

The pandemic public health emergency placed an overwhelming burden on an already underfunded and understaffed public health workforce. For at least 15 months, staff at public health agencies have worked seven days a week, sometimes unable to take more than two hours away at a time from their email and phones, administrators told The Gazette. The...
Iowa Ideas 2020 replay: Reimagining the Future of Health Care

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the state's health care system in truly unique ways as elective and preventive care was put on hold for weeks. What did health care systems learn from the pandemic and how does it change how the state's health care system will work going forward? How did health care come together, and how can it be improved? We'l...
Iowa Ideas 2020 replay: Health Care Access Disparities

The COVID-19 pandemic and racial injustice protests following the murder of George Floyd brought the disparities that communities of color have with health care. We'll take a look into the gaps Blacks and Latinx communities face when it comes to health care access. What is being done to close these gaps and what challenges exist in Iowa? Panelis...
Iowa Ideas 2020 replay: Future of Prescription Drug Prices

Prescription drug prices is a pocketbook issue with voters, but progress in controlling prescription drug pricing has been difficult to get traction on. The COVID-19 pandemic complicated an already difficult scenario too. How have state reforms been working and what will it take to get meaningful on the issue? Panelists Include: Anthony Carroll,...
Iowa Ideas 2020 replay: Rural Health Care Issues

With Iowa's rural health providers seeing challenges even in the best of times, the coronavirus pandemic has brought forth an entire new host of challenges for Iowa's rural health providers. The pause on appointments had a big impact to finances, but how did telehealth help and could some of those changes become permanent? How does Iowa's rural ...
Iowa Ideas 2020 replay: Mental Health

The elements of 2020 are ingredients for a dramatic increase in mental health issues across the state. Quarantine fatigue, political stressors, shifts in family and social dynamics are jolting all areas of life. How do we differentiate between expected bouts of anxiety vs. high-risk, long-term impact? Panelists include: Peggy Huppert, NAMI; Jaco...