Episode 101: Republicans Are Not Killing Medicaid to 'Save' It. ICE is Trying to Restrict Access to Our Representatives. Top 5 TV Dads.

Podcast Segments:

* Iowa Coast to Coast (statewide news)

* From the Guardian: Six months ago, Alex Hammer was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 37. Dianne Chambers endured surgery, chemotherapy and dozens of rounds of radiation to fight aggressive breast cancer, and Janan Haugen spends most days helping care for her 16-year-old grandson, who is still being treated for brain cancer he developed at the age of seven. The three were among a group of about two dozen people who came together last week in a small town in central Iowa to share their experiences of cancer. They are part of a new research project investigating potential environmental causes for what the American Cancer Society’s advocacy arm calls a cancer “crisis”. For the last few years, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of cancer in the nation, and is only one of two US states where cancer is increasing. “People in rural communities are getting sick. Cancer is just everywhere,” said Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy at the Iowa Environmental Council, a non-profit focused on improving the environment that is helping to lead the project. “Every person I talk to knows somebody that has [recently] had a cancer diagnosis,” she said. “It’s just a constant drumbeat. It’s scary.”

* From Ed Tibbets in Bleeding Heartland: Nobody wants their tax dollars going to pay for government health insurance for some dude who just hangs around his parents’ basement gaming while the rest of us have to haul ourselves out of bed each morning to go to work. Which is why Republicans have been focusing so much on the Medicaid work requirements in Donald Trump’s big, ugly tax bill. They won’t admit the money they save by taking health insurance away from millions of poor Americans will go to finance tax cuts for some of the wealthiest families in the country. So, they falsely claim these cuts will protect the most vulnerable, who also are covered by Medicaid. As I’ve previously pointed out, this claim is not true. If it were, the money they plan to save on these work requirements would go to trim Medicaid waiting lists or to bolster care for Iowans who rely on already struggling rural hospitals. But they don’t. They go to pay for tax cuts. Still, the image of forcing that lazy, 29-year-old man off his couch and into the workforce is a powerful one, and it is the foundation of the Republicans’ campaign to sell Trump’s bill. (Editor’s note from Laura Belin: U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson has repeatedly used this frame. For example, she told some Iowa reporters in a conference call last month, “the intent of Medicaid is to protect those with disabilities, seniors, single mothers with children, not 29-year-old men playing video games on their mother’s couch in the basement.”)

The problem is this image also is not true.

A study published at the end of April demonstrates just who these “able-bodied” non-working people on Medicaid actually are.

* First, they’re rare. And, for the most part, they’re not men.

* Four out of five are women.

* Their average age is 41.

* One out of four is a woman over the age of 50.

* On average, they live in households of 4.4 people. They have no income of their own and the average income of their families is less than $45,000 a year.

Think about those images for a moment. How many of us know women who live in such struggling households? Who are just trying to get by. Who if they didn’t have Medicaid would have no health insurance at all.

* Cauc Talk (political news)

* From The Hill: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is placing new limitations on lawmakers seeking to visit detention facilities, releasing guidelines in the wake of visits from Democrats that have turned confrontational. Members of Congress have the legal right to make unannounced visits to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. But new guidance posted by ICE seeks to rein in that power, asking lawmakers to give 72 hours notice before any visits, while requiring th