Three females who escaped Sunday night from the Clarinda Academy have been captured. Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers says the girls, ages 14, 15, & 17, left the academy at around 6:45-p.m. Sunday, and allegedly stole an Academy employee’s car. The teens included two white females and one black female. Two are from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The third female is from Texas.

According to Brothers, the juveniles were recaptured late Sunday night near West Branch, following a high speed chase, during which a tire on the stolen vehicle blew out. The escapees were transported to the Juvenile Detention Center in Eldora.

Police in Council Bluffs say a convenience store was robbed early this (Monday) morning. Sgt. Rob. Radford says at around 1:20-a.m., a white male subject entered the Kwik Shop store at 3632 Avenue G in Council Bluffs, displayed a handgun and demanded money from the cash register. The suspect, who wore a black hoodie and black pants, left the business and was last seen riding a bicycle eastbound on Avenue G.

The incident remains under investigation. Anyone with information about the crime should contact the Council Bluffs P-D at 712-328-4728.

A Cass County woman convicted on numerous charges associated with faking her 5-year old daughter’s cancer is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday (Jan. 20th) at 10-a.m.  30-year old Leatha Kaye Slauson’s sentencing was continued until January 20th while a court-ordered pre-sentence investigation was being completed, and other statements are gathered, such as a court-ordered mental health evaluation and victim impact statements.

Slauson has admitted to giving her daughter Cannabis Oil and Neupogen without a prescription. She also admitted she raised money for her daughter’s supposed cancer treatment, under false pretenses. In her plea bargain, Slauson agreed to plead guilty to Class D felony charges that include two counts of Child Endangerment/Bodily Injury, with regard to the administering of Cannabis Oil and Neupogen to her daughter Riley, as well as a count of Administering Harmful Substances.

She also plead guilty to a Serious Misdemeanor charge of Unlawful Possession of a prescription drug/Neupogen, and a reduced felony charge of Theft in the second degree, also a Class D- felony. She was originally charged with Theft in the 1st degree, a Class C felony.

Iowa’s insurance commissioner says it’s too early to make predictions about the fate of health co-ops set up under the Affordable Care Act, but thousands of Iowans are scrambling to find a new insurer after one of those co-ops essentially collapsed last month. Nick Gerhart was recently assigned management of the nonprofit insurance provider CoOportunity. The leaders of CoOportunity initially thought they would enroll about 12,000 people in Iowa and Nebraska, but they got about ten times that, according to Gerhart.

David Fairchild and Clara Peterson own a small cleaning business in Iowa. The couple had health insurance via CoOportunity Health before the co-op faltered.

“Ours was the second largest (health co-op) in the country, so you’ve got to look at it that way.” Gerhart says. “If the second largest can’t make it, how viable are the other ones? I don’t know. But at the end of the day they didn’t have enough capital to support 120,000 members.” CoOportunity hit a kind of perfect storm, according to Peter Damiano, director of the University of Iowa’s public policy center. First, the co-op had to pay a lot more medical bills than those in charge expected.

“CoOportunity Health’s pool of people was larger than expected and was sicker than expected,” Damiano says. “So their risk became much greater than the funds that were available.” The reason the co-op’s customers were sicker has a lot to do with what the insurance market looked like in Iowa before Obamacare.

The largest insurer by far in the state was and still is Wellmark. But Wellmark decided not to offer any plans on Iowa’s health exchange, leaving just CoOportunity and one other insurer – Coventry – offering plans on the exchange throughout the state. Gerhart says, the co-op thought it was going to get more federal money, but learned on December 16 that financing wasn’t being extended. Gerhart says even though CoOportunity is not officially dead yet, customers should switch insurers.

David Fairchild and his wife, Clara Peterson, own a small cleaning business in Ames. David has chronic leukemia but treats it with expensive medicine. Last year, the couple saved hundreds of dollars switching from the insurer Wellmark to a plan run by CoOportunity Health. For the first time in a long time, Fairchild said, they felt like they had room to breathe. “Basically it covered our office visits; covered exams, it covered all but $40 of the medicine every four weeks. It was just marvelous. It probably was too good to be true,” Fairchild said.

Fairchild and his wife have already applied through healthcare.gov to switch to Coventry. In a written statement, Dr. Martin Hickey, chairman of the board of the National Alliance of State Health Co-Ops, said, “The news about CoOportunity Health is not a statement on the health insurance co-op program or the co-op concept. It’s a reflection on the fact that all insurers – not just co-ops – are operating in unique markets with unique business plans and varying state regulations. The circumstances for CoOportunity Health in Iowa are not the same as those in the 23 other states in which co-ops are currently operating.”

(Radio Iowa/Iowa Public Radio)