PPC report cited in Gazette's fact check on mental health care

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, in response to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andy McGuire's seven-point plan to improve mental health care, made several claims about the current state of care in Iowa. In fact-checking those claims, The Gazette cited a Public Policy Center (PPC) report, "Community Based Adult Mental Health in Iowa: Impact of the ACA and Health System Change on the Iowa Safety Net," co-authored by Peter Damiano, Suzanne Bentler, Astha Singhal, and Peter Schumacher.

While the report mostly supports Reynolds' claim that 150,000 more Iowans have mental health coverage than when the Governor Terry Branstad first took office in 2011, it’s unclear if some of the current enrollees in the program didn’t have access to mental health care before the state plan started in 2014. To read the full article in The Gazette, click here.

The report is one of a collection of 13 reports that inventory information the PPC has collected on the primary care safety net. The project was funded by The Commonwealth Fund to study the implications of the ACA on safety net health care providers. Additional support was provided by the Dentaquest Foundation and Wellmark Foundation of Iowa.