Rock Rapids, Iowa — Iowa US Senator Chuck Grassley was in northwest Iowa on Tuesday, wrapping up his 99-county tour for the year.
In Rock Rapids, Senator Grassley toured the new Avera Merrill Pioneer Hospital. He tells us his thoughts on the facility.
After the tour, Grassley took several questions. He answered a question about critical access hospital reimbursement by saying that the maintaining of basic services in critical access hospitals is very important to him.
He took a question on ethanol and said that ethanol supporters need to keep pressuring the EPA to follow the Renewable Fuel Standards law as it was written. He says that the petroleum industry, the ethanol industry, and environmentalists used to be on the same side because the petroleum people needed to add oxygenate to their fuels, and ethanol was an environmentally-friendly way of doing that. Now, he says petroleum sees ethanol as eating into their profits and the environmentalists want to get rid of all petroleum products, and they see ethanol as something that helps promote petroleum products.
Grassley says President Trump is concerned about the issue.
Since Grassley was at a medical facility, many of the questions were related to medical services, from the lacking reimbursement of costs to the lack of mental services and reimbursing for telemedicine services. Grassley told them that some of the issues are being addressed at the federal level and some at the state level.
Finally, Grassley talked about the tariff issues and says that it is President Trump’s end goal in that situation to get rid of all tariffs so that American products can be sold just as easily in other countries as they are here.
Photo by KIWA Staff. Grassley speaks with Avera Merrill Pioneer Hospital Administrator Craig Hohn.
