Congressman Dave Loebsack Visits With Fort Madison Hospital Leaders

Iowa Congressman Dave Loebsack attended a meeting with the department heads of the Fort Madison Hospital on Monday to discuss the challenges that the hospital is facing when it comes to recruiting physicians.

Fort Madison Hospital’s President and CEO, James C. Platt told Loebsack that while the Fort Madison Hospital is considered a top one-hundred hospital in the country when it comes to patient care, it is almost impossible to recruit a physician based on the federal government reimbursements that rural hospitals get. Platt also pointed out that while a patient receives the same care that they would at a urban hospital the cost for that care is considerably lower and less profit means loosing out to more profitable hospitals when it comes to physician recruitment.

“You get a young person who borrowed every nickel to go to college and there coming out with a $400,000 school loan and obviously we are paying over a number of years to make that go away, we still have to put that into the Fair Market Value, it makes it so that we aren’t competitive.”

Congressman Dave Loebsack responds, “What we are seeing with this administration is an attempt to Urbanize healthcare…and that’s whats really unfortunate about all of this and its why a lot of us in these rural districts are trying to reverse as best we can, however we can and we need more advice as to how to try and do that but that’s whats really going on….it’s driven by Free Market Ideology…”

Platt pointed out that there is a need for local health care and that in order for hospitals to offer health care services if they are able to recruit physicians

Congressman Dave Loebsack also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee that has jurisdiction over health care policy and he would like to see regulations that are against small hospitals be stopped in its tracks and instead offer physician recruitment incentives on the federal level.