Katie is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She graduated from Grinnell College with a BA in History. She is a second year Master of Public Health student in the Community and Behavioral Health department at the University of Iowa. She works for the MPH Department and for the Iowa Cancer Consortium. She is interested in many public health topics, including health disparities, chronic disease prevention, sexual assault and domestic violence prevention, and health communication. In her spare time, she enjoys cycling and playing board games with friends.Yesterday I traveled with a social worker and a group of nurses from the Oncology Nursing Society to Des Moines to talk to state senators about cancer issues. On the way up, I gave an overview of the Iowa Cancer Consortium and the ICC’s legislative priorities for the year. It was really interesting to hear about what the nurses wanted to talk to legislators about.
A lot of them expressed frustration over the current medical home system, which was created to help people under the IowaCare plan. IowaCare covers low-income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid but aren’t insured, but unfortunately if they have cancer, they have to go to the UIHC in Iowa City to get their treatment, even if they live on the other side of the state. Many of these patients have difficulty paying for transportation to get to Iowa City and don’t have a place to stay once they get here. A medical home model had been created to allow IowaCare patients to get their primary care needs met closer to home at certain clinics, but this has caused many of its own problems, as there is no standardization for what the clinics can provide for these patients. Fortunately, a lot of this will change once the Affordable Care Act is implemented, since the majority of people in IowaCare will qualify for Medicaid once it’s been expanded (and then won't be required to go to Iowa City for specialty care), but until that happens, these patients still need help.
We were able to meet with four senators, including the senator from my hometown (Sen. Hogg of Cedar Rapids, who high-fived me when he found out I went to high school where his kids go) and my own senator Joe Bolkcom. Both Hogg and Bolkcom and another senator we met with, Sen. Dvorsky, are already really involved in cancer prevention and control efforts, which is wonderful. We were only able to talk with each of them for about ten minutes, but we left them each a folder filled with information about our legislative priorities and a copy of the Iowa Cancer Plan. It was a good trip!
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