Thread: IA -Immigrant coverage, sample ban dropped from health bill

Immigrant coverage, sample ban dropped from health bill
By TONY LEYS • tleys@dmreg.com • March 4, 2009

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Two controversial proposals have been dropped from a wide-ranging health-reform bill.


Legislators no longer are considering a ban on free prescription-drug samples or an extension of public health insurance to immigrant children who are in the country illegally.



Both proposals had been included in Senate File 48, but they were deleted this morning by a subcommittee headed by Sen. Jack Hatch.


The Des Moines Democrat said the bill still contains important reforms, including a requirement that parents sign their children up for government insurance if they qualify. Hatch said that proposal would not include a penalty, but it should lead to almost all Iowa children being covered by insurance.


The bill also would create an “insurance exchange,â€

The bill still contains a measure that would limit drug sales representatives’ ability to track the prescription patterns of individual doctors, then use that knowledge to try to persuade doctors to order one brand over another.

That bugs me.....hate to think certain drugs are pushed on people and what's best for them isn't the issue.

Glad they are slowing it down.....I don't know how on earth they think we can afford to handle all this.

I really think the whole medical practice needs to be overhauled. And why am I continually being bombarded with TV ads to ask my doctor for a prescription I don't need. Buying air time is expensive, so no wonder my one monthly prescription has gone up $25 every year in the last four years. Having no health insurance and too spry for Medicare, too old and well off for Medicaid, they are seriously cutting into my budget. My doctor will raid the sample cabinet and save me a month or two of expense during my annual visit. I like my doctor and I would hate to see my samples given away to some illegal under the don't ask policy.