Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett finds it “disappointing” and “short-sighted” that neither the Iowa legislature nor the Branstad/Reynolds administration developed a plan earlier this year to address the collapse in Iowa’s individual health insurance market. By his account, state lawmakers and executive branch officials knew insurers were likely to stop selling individual policies for 2018 and should have developed “some type of backstop” instead of waiting for Congress to act.

Corbett plans to launch a Republican campaign for governor later today. He commented on Iowa’s potential health coverage crisis during a telephone interview with Bleeding Heartland last week.

In April, Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Aetna both announced that they did not plan to offer individual health insurance policies in Iowa for 2018. Whether a third company will stay in the statewide market remains unclear.

Two days before I interviewed Corbett, Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen released what he called a “stopgap measure” to shore up the market. Wellmark is willing to sell individual insurance here next year if federal officials approve Iowa’s waiver request.

I’d been planning to ask Corbett about this problem, but before I turned to the topic, he brought up the Affordable Care Act to illustrate his point about the danger of passing tax reform with “exclusively Republican” votes. In his view, bipartisan input is essential to provide “long-term stability in tax policy.”

Here’s the audio from this part of our June 14 telephone interview.

My transcript:

Corbett: I mean, Obamacare is the perfect example at the federal level, where it was basically passed exclusively with Democrat votes, and ever since, Republicans have been, you know, trying to change it. And even though they haven’t been successful at this point in time, you know, it’s provided–the fact that they are advocating for change in it, it just puts so much uncertainty in the, in the health care, you know, market. Every day we wake up and see something different. But everything’s been turned upside down, and, you know, people that I talk to kind of just want it to get back to normal.

Bleeding Heartland: Well, I–as a self-employed person, and knowing a lot of self-employed people, there’s panic right now out there. So what do you think about this stopgap plan that the insurance commissioner put out on Monday?

Corbett: Yeah, I read a little bit about it. I’m sorry they have to have a stopgap plan. This is something that should have been addressed early on in the, in the legislative year. I mean, there really was no plan from the [Branstad/Reynolds] administration.

If you think of not just self-employed people like you, but entrepreneurs, farmers, people that took early retirement, you know, they save and decide to retire early, they’re in that individual marketplace too. If we’re gonna–if we want any predictability in the economy, I guarantee people like you and others aren’t going out buying new cars.

Bleeding Heartland: Well, I mean, I know people who are literally thinking, wondering whether they might have to move to another state to get health insurance next year.

Corbett: Yeah, so it’s–they’re all going to, they’re not going to be out there consuming goods and services that we want, you know, from an economic standpoint. They’re all pulling back, wondering what they’re going to have next January.

So this plan [from the Iowa insurance commissioner], it has to get federal approval–and as you’ve read the articles and done more research on it than I have, because you’re personally affected by it–knows that they may not be able to approve a waiver, or they don’t even know that they legally have the right to approve the waiver.

So it’s disappointing that there wasn’t at least some anticipation of this happening. I mean, there was–Wellmark, you know, Aetna, they were channeling all this. Maybe they hadn’t made it public, you know, to the degree that they have [since April], but certainly through back channels that [reached] people in the legislative process. Certainly the executive branch knew that they were going to be exiting the market. And it’s disappointing that they didn’t have some type of backstop in the event that Congress, you know, didn’t take action.

And frankly, why would we be banking on Congress to do anything? I’ve been waiting for nine years for the federal government to provide flood protection money for the people of Cedar Rapids. We’ve been authorized twice. We’ve been approved by the [U.S. Army] Corps [of Engineers]. We’ve been in the Water Resource Development Act. Everybody says they support it. But they haven’t appropriated any money. Nine years yesterday [June 13] was the, was the anniversary of our flood.

So putting your, you know, your whole health insurance in jeopardy for [the] individual market, hoping that Congress is going to address it, you know, is really short-sighted.

Bleeding Heartland: I was surprised the legislature didn’t do anything on it. I share your surprise on that. To me, that was an obvious one. But I guess they had to take care of the collective bargaining law that worked well for 43 years before they dealt with a crisis that’s going to affect 70,000 people. So-

Corbett: Yeah, it’s, it was certainly something that should have been addressed. And I know how–it’s hard. It’s very difficult to do that. But I also say in my book, you know, when I was speaker of the House, we created HAWK-I. HAWK-I was Healthy and Well Kids in Iowa. It was part of the overall national movement of what they called CHIP, Children’s Health Insurance Program. And we put that together.

We actually did put it together in a bipartisan manner. You can visit with old legislators like [Democrat] Ro Foege, was part of that, [Republican] Danny Carroll was part of that, [Republican] Brad Hansen. These are people that are no longer serving but, you know, have moved on in their careers.

And I was pleased to see that Iowa yesterday got that ranking of [KIDS COUNT] for kids’ well-being. And one of the issues that was cited for one of our–for our higher ranking was HAWK-I. And the HAWK-I plan, you know, was put together, you know, when I was speaker, in a bipartisan way. It wasn’t done with just Republican votes. Probably could have, but you know, why?

And because it wasn’t done with just Republican votes, it was done with Republicans and Democrats, there is an example of sustainability of a program. And that’s benefited, you know, kids, low-income kids in this state for the last, you know, well, almost 20 years now, 20-plus years. It can be done, it can be done, Laurie, if the leaders are committed to it, and you know, that’s their, their goal. So it’s possible.

Health insurance is unlikely to be as central to Corbett’s campaign as tax reform, teacher pay, and water quality.

However, the failure of former Governor Terry Branstad and Governor Kim Reynolds to seize the initiative on this issue created an opening for the mayor as he tries to persuade Republican primary voters that Iowa needs “a new game plan.” Corbett’s political memoir Beyond Promises depicts its protagonist as an engaged leader, on the hunt for new ideas and pushing for ambitious solutions.

The prospect of 72,000 Iowans having no health insurance after December 31 has been a major news story attracting national attention for two months. Even if Reynolds didn’t have a proposal ready to unveil when she laid out her administration’s top priorities, she should have at least acknowledged the problem in her first speech as governor. As things stand, she looks passive and out of touch with a top concern for thousands of Iowans.

Reynolds tried to step on Corbett’s announcement by rolling out a list of 1,050 supporters covering all 99 counties yesterday. In case anyone didn’t get the memo, Reynolds underscored that she is the GOP establishment’s candidate. Her campaign’s rhetoric about “our vision of a better Iowa” would be more convincing if she seemed more proactive in trying to preserve access to health care. Our state won’t have “a competitive business environment” without a functioning insurance market.

UPDATE: Reynolds is playing some catch-up on this issue. O.Kay Henderson reported for Radio Iowa on June 20 that when President Donald Trump comes to Cedar Rapids on June 21,

Reynolds plans to raise a specific issue with Trump.

“Of course I’m going to talk about encouraging the White House to work with us on our stop-gap measure for insurance coverage so that we have an option for 72,000 Iowans,” Reynolds says, “to ensure that they have some kind of coverage beginning July 1 of 2018.”

The Iowa insurance commissioner has been working on the federal waiver request for months. I’ve seen no evidence Reynolds or her staff had any meaningful involvement in developing the plan. She didn’t mention the health insurance problem among her top priorities after taking office.