Gov. Kim Reynolds has dropped an outspoken Medicaid adviser who repeatedly voiced concerns about how private management companies were treating Iowans with disabilities.
David Hudson spent two years as co-chairman of Iowa's Medical Assistance Advisory Council, whose duties include monitoring the state's shift to private management of its $5 billion Medicaid program.
“I felt that I was asking the questions the governor should have been asking,” he said in an interview at his Windsor Heights home. “… I guess I pushed back too hard or something.”
A spokeswoman for Reynolds declined to comment on Hudson’s contention that he was pushed out for being outspoken. The governor on Tuesday announced four new appointees to the council. They did not include Hudson.
Hudson, 61, served as a lobbyist for then-Gov. Terry Branstad in the 1990s. He said Branstad, a fellow Republican, appointed him as co-chairman of the Medicaid council two years ago because of his experience caring for his profoundly disabled son, Matthew. Matthew, 30, is covered by Medicaid, the joint state and federal health-care program.
