DES MOINES, Iowa — At this time, Iowa Medicaid forms do not comply with federal law.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires that voter registration services be included when someone applies for public assistance programs to allow low-income people to easily register to vote.
Iowa State Rep. Adam Zabner (D-Iowa City) said Iowa’s Medicaid application forms don’t fit him.
The Iowa Capitol Dispatch first raised the issue in January, and Iowa Health and Human Services is working to correct it.
“Other states include a voter registration form in their Medicaid application package,” said Rep. Zabner. “The Iowa form, which is 27 pages long, had a line about voter registration on page 16 of 27 at the bottom. It was a link to an online website where the voter registration form can be found and print it out”.
Right now, the link included on Medicaid forms that is supposed to take Iowans to the voter registration form is not working.
Voter advocates said this will likely result in fewer Iowans registering to vote through Medicaid.
“Kentucky is a little bigger than Iowa,” Rep. Zabner said. “In the last election cycle, they registered 88,000 voters, or had 88,000 voter registration applications through their Medicaid system. Iowa had 1,222.”
Rep. Zabner met with Iowa Health and Human Services in late January to discuss the issue. Since then, he has been following up every few weeks to make sure there is a plan to comply with federal law. It took some time for HHS to establish a timeline, and Rep. Zabner expressed frustration with the length of the process.
HHS Director Kelly Garcia responded to Rep. Zabner with an email in April.
“We agree that this is an important issue for the more than 400,000 adults insured by the Medicaid, HAWKI and IHAWP programs,” Garcia said. “It was brought to my attention through a recent media article and I, too, was surprised to learn of a compliance issue.”
“I’m glad to see that we’ve at least made progress and I’m very hopeful that Iowans will have that right to register to vote through Medicaid in August,” said Rep. Zabner.
As of May 31, the new Medicaid forms HHS sent to Rep. Zabner include a voter registration application and they said they plan to release it “after August.”
“Through the Governor’s vision for aligning state agencies, we have built a new Compliance Division focused on oversight, internal controls and auditing functions,” Garcia said in that April email. “This new work did not previously exist in any of the legacy agencies that now make up HHS, and while it will take time to work across the agency, our forms are the first to receive a major system overhaul. This work will include review content within of federal and state laws to ensure compliance, reviewing forms for readability and overall accessibility, and strengthening connections between programs A first for Iowa.
Iowa’s News Now reached out to HHS for comment on the story and did not receive a response.
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