Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is co-sponsoring a bill designed to help keep rural hospitals open. Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, says his group backs the legislation which would create a new “rural emergency hospital” classification under Medicare.

“Rural hospitals are so important to us because they provide trauma services and emergency room services that you can’t replicate,” Lehman says. “We need to do whatever we can to help them make ends meet. By making some simple changes to Medicare, we think that’s a great way to start.”

Lehman says the bill takes on added importance because farming is one of the most lethal occupations. “We know there are risks out there in rural Iowa and rural America and farmers are doing their best to change that,” he says, “but we know there’s a long ways to go and we need to be able to access those trauma services.” A study finds 60-percent of trauma deaths in the U-S occur in rural areas where only 15-percent of the population lives.

Lehman says that’s another big reason to pass the legislation. “If you look at the statistics, the number of injuries due to trauma are significantly higher in rural America,” Lehman says. “It’s very important to our folks out there in rural Iowa and across rural America.”

Under Medicare, many rural hospitals are designated as “critical access hospitals,” meaning, they’re required to maintain a certain amount of inpatient beds as well as an emergency room. However, they’re struggling to attract enough inpatients to keep that status.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey says farmers have been able to catch up quite a bit in their planting with some days of dry weather. But he says some of the corn that’s already emerged may have been in too much water to make it. “They’ll be a little bit of replant where some water has been standing. Most of the rest of the crop it sounds like is up and going,” Northey says. “There’s still some beans to be planted yet….and it is wet enough across Iowa it’s going to take a little while in some places to be able to get back in the field.”

It’s preferred to get the corn all planted by mid-May to avoid any loss in yield. While 92 percent of the corn was planted by the start of this week, Northey says there’s still plenty to be concerned about. “Even just eight percent of the corn means we have a million acres of corn yet to plant — and that’s not in here by the end of May — so we’ll see,” Northey says. “That starts to lose a little yield. Certainly some replants in some bottoms that’ll need to happen, that’ll probably be a little lower yield expectations for producers as well.”

Northey says farmers were busy at the various times when the weather was dry. He says there was one in April, one in early May and then the middle of May, so the planting times have been spread out and it is kind of an experiment in different planting times.

Northey says he’s gotten all his corn planted, but like other farmers, he needs some heat to get it growing. “We do need some warm weather to get it up and going. Most of it has emerged across the state, but it’s still coming yet,” Northey says.

He farms near Spirit Lake and says he still has some beans to get planted.

(Radio Iowa)