Despite criticism from former Gov. Chet Culver (D), Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) is standing by his decision to privatize Medicaid, according to The Des Moines Register.
Gov. Branstad's plan involves paying "three private companies — Amerigroup, Amerihealth and UnitedHealthcare — as much as $504 million in the first year to manage Iowa's $4.2 billion Medicaid program," according to the report. He believes that payout will result in saving the state nearly $51.3 million.
"We feel an obligation to provide the best medical services to the people of Iowa, and to do it in a way that coordinates those services," Gov. Branstad said in defense of his plan, according to the report. "We have seen from the experience of other states that this has improved health."
However, a Senate subcommittee is hoping to repeal this plan. Gov. Branstad has not threatened a veto of the Senate's bill, but he has called their effort "partisan" and "political."
Former Iowa Gov. Culver has also jumped on the repeal train as well, claiming Gov. Branstad's "risky privatization scheme had already started taking on water fast and, in public opinion, was sinking fast. When a governor fails to listen to citizens, bad policy is the result."
"There may be no better example of this kind of poor policy-making [in] the past half century of Iowa state government than Governor Branstad's ill-conceived Medicaid privatization debacle," he added, according to the report.