Friday, June 6, 2008

Iowa Creates "Medical Homes"

By Merrill Matthews, Jr.

Categories: Insurance Regulation, Iowa, SCHIP

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) has signed HF 2539, the health reform package finally agreed upon by the legislature. Like many other states, Iowa created a commission to study health reform and agreed upon a fairly ambitious agenda, but in the end, more modest reforms passed, including:

Expanded children's health insurance coverage;
Creation of medical homes for primary care;
Encouragement for small employers to use Section 125 plans;
Expanded dependent coverage to age 25 for unmarried children;
Waiver of pre-existing condition exclusions on individual coverage if covered by a prior policy; and,
Study of electronic medical records.