A senate committee has approved legislation that would limit the liability for Iowa businesses accused of over-serving a customer involved in a drunk driving crash. If the bill becomes law, a person injured in a drunk driving wreck or the relatives of someone who dies in an accident would be limited to receiving a total of 175-thousand dollars from a bar or restaurant. Senator Michael Breitbach, a Republican from Strawberry Point, says the bill’s needed because Iowa bar owners are finding it harder to buy liability INSURANCE.

“Especially in the western part of our area, in our rural areas if you don’t serve food with your beverages, there’s only one company that will write your coverage,” he says. Breitbach grew up living on the floor above “The Hub” in Colesburg, his family’s bar, and Breitbach says he doesn’t want businesses like it to close because they can’t afford the liability coverage.

“We have a lot of small towns where maybe the only business in the town is the local tavern and maybe they don’t serve enough food that they don’t quality for a better priced policy,” Breitbach says. “We don’t want that business to do away. It might be the backbone of that town.” Senator Nate Boulton, a Democrat from Des Moines, opposed the bill. He says the current law helps “control risk.”

“In many of these situations, the person that is in the best spot to stop an impaired driver is the one who stops that next drink from being served,” Boulton says. “…What this legislation does is it does tear down some of that responsibility.” Under current law, a bar or restaurant can be held liable for all damages from an accident if the person was sold or served alcohol and the business DID know or SHOULD have known the person was intoxicated or was becoming too drunk to drive.

(Radio Iowa)

One of the ads in the big game Sunday will feature a really big western Iowa bull. A 15-second Cenex commercial features “Albert the Bull”, some actors, and some real Audubon residents. Audubon Chamber of Commerce president Brandon Toft says the Albert spot is expected to air sometime around the third quarter. He says two representatives of Minnesota-based C-H-S Energy’s advertising branch appeared at the banquet to show the commercial and also a short documentary on Albert. (Click on the left side of the audio bar(s) to listen)

Toft says he was impressed with the documentary.

The City was contacted late last Summer about shooting the commercial on location. Albert, who is 53-years old and 28-feet tall, was showing his age, so the town reacted quickly to give him some much needed sprucing up.

Toft said the residents of Audubon County are excited to see the Cenex ad, which will make a play on the words “Super Bowl” and turn it into “Super Bull.” And, while the short version of the commercial that debuts on T-V for viewers throughout the Midwest Region features mostly actors, at the end, there is a scene featuring members of the community standing in front of Albert. Toft was not present for that particular shot…he was busy with basketball that morning.

Here’s a link to the 5-minute documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llKOk_AA02A

(KJAN/Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An insurance company that had stopped accepting new Medicaid patients within Iowa’s privatized health care program will soon resume enrollment. The Iowa Department of Human Services announced Friday that Amerigroup plans to accept new patients beginning in May. Patients will then have a choice between Amerigroup and UnitedHealthcare, the other insurance company providing coverage.

Amerigroup also plans to provide coverage, beginning in March, for about 10,000 patients temporarily enrolled in the state’s old Medicaid reimbursement system. Amerigroup said late last year it didn’t have the capacity to accept new Medicaid patients. The company made the decision public after a third company, AmeriHealth Caritas, said it was leaving Iowa amid a contract dispute.

DHS says it’s responding to complaints over reduced services under the privatized Medicaid system.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that claimed Iowa’s privatized Medicaid program violated the rights of disabled patients. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger made the decision Friday. She notes the main insurance company referenced in the lawsuit, AmeriHealth Caritas, stopped providing Medicaid coverage in the state late last year.

Disability Rights Iowa filed the lawsuit last year on behalf of six people, claiming the insurance companies running the health care program cut services to people with disabilities. It named Gov. Kim Reynolds and DHS director Jerry Foxhoven.

Jane Hudson, executive director of Disability Rights Iowa, says in a statement the organization is evaluating its next steps. She says the Legislature should take action in the meantime.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Longtime NBC journalist Tom Brokaw has donated thousands of documents spanning his career to the University of Iowa, and they’re now available to the public. The collection includes a notebook with interview questions for Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev and press badges from Saudi Arabia and the 1992 Republican National Convention.

Some of the donated photographs show Brokaw standing in front of plumes of smoke in New York on Sept. 11. Graduate Assistant Elizabeth Riordan says the collection shows 50 years of the biggest global news stories as seen through the eyes of one reporter.

Brokaw spent his freshman year at the university, which gave him an honorary doctorate in 2010. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that the items were made available to the public on Thursday at the university’s Main Library.

A state report indicates the fleet of yellow buses owned by Iowa’s public schools traveled more than 40 MILLION miles last year. Some geographically large Iowa school districts are spending more than nine-hundred dollars a year for EACH STUDENT who rides the bus to and from school.

“Some of the larger school districts in some of the far-flung areas of the state are very expensive.” That’s House Speaker Linda Upmeyer. Upmeyer and other Republican lawmakers are offering to supplement some school transportation budgets — but in varying degrees. Republicans in the HOUSE are suggesting a 10-million dollar boost for the coming year.

“To the most needy districts across the state who are struggling with transportation, especially in the rural areas.” That’s Republican Representative Walt Rogers of Cedar Falls, chairman of the House Education Committee. A year ago, SENATE Republicans signaled they wanted to immediately send twice as much to schools for transporting kids to and from school. That plan eventually would have committed about 150-million dollars a year in state money to supplement the budgets for busing in sprawling districts with rural zip codes. Senator Amy Sinclair, a Republican from Allerton, says given current state budget realities, she understands why her G-O-P colleagues in the House favor spending less on school transportation.

“I prefer fixing problems rather than putting band-aids on them, but absolutely I’ll work with them to see if we can get something done that will at least alleviate that stress and help every child receive a high-quality education,” Sinclair says. Sinclair says another bill pending in the legislature could help ease school budgets for busing. The bill would let elementary students ride the bus just as long as high school students — a one-way trip of 75 minutes. One district told legislators with students of any age riding the same bus, two bus ROUTES could be eliminated and save the district 100-thousand dollars next year.

(Radio Iowa)