Health Takes a Backseat to Ideology

Senate Republicans took another page from the Trump Administration this week and passed a version of the governor’s sweeping health omnibus bill. The bill sets questionable health priorities and complicates critical programs Iowans count on to feed their families.

What’s Inside HF 2676

Here are a few of the unhealthy provisions included in HF 2676:

• Pharmacists will be able to distribute ivermectin as an over-the-counter medication for human consumption.

• If the federal government chooses, for whatever reason, not to approve the state’s SNAP waiver, Iowa will withdraw from the Summer EBT program, which helps ensure thousands of Iowa kids remain fed during the summer months.

• Complicated SNAP restrictions that prevent Iowa families from purchasing certain – and often healthy – foods at the grocery store. The restrictions are not based on nutritional value – for example, families can buy a cup of fruit but cannot buy that same cup of fruit if it comes packaged with a spoon; Iowans cannot buy warm rotisserie chicken but can buy the same rotisserie chicken if it has been pulled from the bone, repackaged, and sold cold. 

Rather than making Iowans healthier, this bill will complicate successful program, push healthy options further out of reach, and endorse fringe medicinal treatments not based in science.