A message for Iowa's leadership

One might think that when there are 7,100 job openings for physicians and nurses at Iowa Workforce Development, it's time to take a serious look at the shortages in our healthcare workforce. Maybe even look ahead and see what's coming? You know, make projections?

As incredible as it sounds, Iowa's lawmakers, leadership and healthcare stakeholders have never seen it that way. It is true, there have never been any Iowa-based, comprehensive projections of Iowa's key healthcare workers. Which may explain why lawmakers and bureaucrats continue to make policies that don't begin to scratch the surface of mitigating current shortages in the physician supply. As for our registered nurses and direct care workers, they have not even pretended to address that life-limiting understaffing.

I couldn't take it anymore. So I made my own projections. 

January 2026 - Projections for Iowa's healthcare workforce! 

Way to be proactive. Not.

If you think cost is the only barrier to health care access, you are as misinformed as Congress. In its infinite wisdom, Congress put a freeze on CMS-funded medical residencies back in 1997, after being advised by an HHS Advisory Board that we were facing the income-crushing threat of having too many physicians. (CMS pays for about 85 percent of all medical residencies.)

Finally recognizing that thousands of medical school graduates go without being matched for a residency every year, and that America is facing a dramatic shortage of doctors in the near future, Congress agreed in 2020 that we need more trained physicians. 

When is it time to acknowledge something really has not worked?

It all began with the U.S. Surgeon General's campaign to curb smoking (which hasn't been all that successful) back in the 1970s. Now many have high hopes for Making America Health Again and you can count me among them. But we have sort of been down this road before . . .

Two-minute read: Another rural health care "solution"?

Like many other states (with which we must compete), Iowa is just a few years away from suffering historic and life-threatening shortages in all categories of health care workers: physicians, nurses and direct care workers. Iowa already has thousands of job openings, and by 2030, those numbers will be in the tens of thousands.

Watching state leadership and lawmakers throw stuff at the wall to see what might possibly stick is both frustrating and frightening.

"Healthy Hometowns," another fix for Iowa's rural health care

Where did all the children go?

The Baby Boom isn't just something that happened a long time ago. 

Quite the contrary. The impact of those 75,000,000 babies will continue for decades and generations to come. 

Four of every ten extended families in America include someone with dementia. What's the plan?

I can guarantee you that policy makers and stakeholders are not preparing for what's coming. That is why each one of us MUST.

Just when you and your physician were really starting to communicate . . .

Benjamin Franklin said, "You may delay, but time will not." Those words ring most true when it comes to seeking and receiving health care.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 If you ignore a public health issue long enough, will it just go away?

Thirty-five-year-old health care data just isn't going to cut it.

 

When EHR systems aren't speaking . . .

 

Failing to plan is--you know how it goes.

 

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you."

 

Two minute read: Simple steps reaping huge rewards.

If you're not yet familiar with health care's newest neologism, you're gonna luv this one: "bedlocked." 

How about some super simple life-extending action steps that just might come in handy in an emergency?

Get a PCP while the getting is good.

This time around: A 15-minute listen on what threatens health care access in Iowa

Whether or not you live in Iowa, your health care world is about to be rocked. The demographics of aging and chronic illness are straining a system where needs were already unmet. 

I recently joined John Busbee of The Culture Buzz for a conversation on what's happening in Iowa and how 2025 legislation may--or may not--make a positive impact on Iowans' survival. And I included a life-extending tip for accessing health care when, where and how you need it! 

Jo Kline on The Culture Buzz

Two-minute read - Lawmakers' at-bat for health care access in Iowa

A third of Iowa's rural hospitals are operating in the red, and we can expect to be short tens of thousands of physicians, nurses and direct care workers by 2030. 

Did Iowa lawmakers just improve our odds for access? 

The 2025 Iowa Legislature - A swing and a miss