Legislative Day

This year’s legislative day was well attended by Drake including Professors and Students. The Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal gave the Keynote address talking about important bills being discussed in the Iowa legislature. In particular SF48 proposed by Senator Jack Hatch was the topic of discussion. The 2009 Health Care Reform Bill includes provisions that would let cities, small businesses, and nonprofit corporations, among others buy into the state employee health insurance. This would not only provide more Iowans with good insurance opportunities, it would also decrease the cost of insuring state employees by expanding the insurance pool.

The part of the bill that is of most interest to pharmacy is section VII providing an easier way for pharmacist to bill for Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services. It would also force Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM) to be more transparent about their business practices. This might help explain why in some cases only the brand name drug is covered and not the cheaper generics. The bill also provides pharmacist the opportunity to do Academic or Counter Detailing to physicians after Drug Representatives are done talking to them.

Senator Hatch also spoke at Legislative Day about his impact on health care in Iowa, and while Senator Granstal talked a lot about the bill, Senator Hatch spoke about how he was going to get the bill passed. One way he plans to do this is by having aides/interns for each section of the bill educate his colleagues in the Iowa Legislature. While this is a tried and true method, one change was to have student pharmacist do this instead of law students for section VII. Our own Stephanie Swain and Drew Roberts were hired as interns for this purpose. They also talked about their experience so far in the student section.

The student section of legislative day was filled by two new legislators, Representatives Erik Helland and Nate Willems. They talked about the importance of one on one contact with representatives and how much impact it has on them. They also explained how much faster you can get their attention when you let them know you are a constituent. These are important lessons to remember as we try to influence legislators regarding the practice of pharmacy.

The legislative reception was not well attended by students though they were invited to it. This is unfortunate because it was an excellent opportunity to possibly meet your legislator and make a big impact for pharmacy in Iowa. Not only were there numerous legislators but the Governor also made an appearance for about 45 minutes. Hopefully next year more students will attend and continue to make Legislative Day a successful endeavor.

Al Abrahamsen
APhA SPAN Co-Chair
IPA Liaison