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Friends, 

I have been fighting hard to pass another relief package to help our working families affected by COVID-19.

Over the past two months, I’ve urged House leadership to demonstrate our willingness to work with the Senate and White House by meeting in the middle on negotiations to get a bill passed and signed into law. Last week, talks were showing real, bipartisan progress towards a deal.

But yesterday, the President abruptly ended these bipartisan negotiations, leaving Iowans across our state without new relief assistance and forcing Iowans to wait until he is willing to come back to the table. I kept pushing because I knew that a bipartisan deal could be reached, but now it seems all willingness to work together has faded. This is deeply wrong and will hurt everyone – regardless of political party.

With more than 210,000 lives lost to this pandemic, half of all restaurants at risk of closing within the next six months, millions of kids out of school, and thousands of Iowa families struggling to keep food on their tables and roofs over their head, we cannot afford to wait to come to an agreement.

I have urged the President to reconsider his position because, by all accounts, we had been closer to a deal than we had been in months. I will also keep fighting to restart these negotiations. Until there is more news to share on COVID-19 relief, I’d like to share some of the other things I’ve been working on the last two weeks.

Protecting Our Seniors with More COVID-19 Testing

Recently, the Iowa Department of Public Health State Hygienic Laboratory (SHL) told Iowa’s long-term care facilities that SHL cannot meet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) standards for testing nurses, staff, and volunteers. SHL will also be unable to provide the required amounts of routine testing for nursing staff and employees who work in skilled, nursing, and other long-term care and living facilities.

That’s why I sent a letter to Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds expressing my concern over this announcement and I urged her to share with me any federal investments her administration may require to meet the testing needs of Iowa’s long-term care facilities. This letter also asked her to pursue efforts to bridge the gap in testing capacity.

Getting Iowa Businesses More Answers on PPP Forgiveness

The Paycheck Protection Program has been a lifeline for Iowa’s businesses. In central and southwest Iowa, over 13,000 loans have been approved for a total of over $1.3 billion, which have supported at least 120,000 Iowa jobs and protected our industries from deeper economic pain during COVID-19.

But while Iowa businesses received over $5 billion in PPP loans, the Department of Treasury and Small Business Administration (SBA) still haven’t given these business owners or lenders the information they need to start qualifying for loan forgiveness, which they can be eligible for if they used the funds to keep their employees on staff.

Last week, I led my colleagues in a letter urging the Treasury and SBA to provide an update on these PPP loan forgiveness applications – because our businesses cannot afford to be left in limbo and unsure if they will qualify for the forgiveness they were expecting to receive.

The full text of the letter can be found here. I am pleased to report that following this push, Iowa lenders have finally started to get responses from SBA, and some Iowa businesses are starting to get their PPP loans forgiven.

House Passes the Helping MOMS Act

Mothers across this country will tell you that the first two months after giving birth is just the beginning of the healing process. However, current law only requires 60 days of postpartum birth coverage under Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for new mothers.

As a mother of two boys, I was proud to cosponsor legislation to expand that coverage requirement to one year to help new mothers – and I’m pleased to share that this important bill was passed unanimously out of the House last week!

The Helping Medicaid Offer Maternity Services Act, or Helping MOMS Act, will allow states to provide one year of postpartum coverage for women under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

This expansion will help ensure that Iowa’s moms have all the support they need for health care conditions like depression, gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, and countless other illnesses a new mother can experience after giving birth.

Learn more about the bill here.

Interested in Attending a Military Service Academy?

Iowans living in the Third Congressional District who are at least 17 years old today but will not be 23 or older by July 1st, 2021 can apply through my office to be nominated to join the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.

The young men and women selected to attend these service academies will learn the values and traditions of their chosen branch, receive a world-class education, and become military officers and future leaders of our nation.

Individuals who wish to compete for a nomination and admission to a service academy should first apply directly to the academy, and then apply for nomination through my office by November 25th, 2020.

The application and further instructions can be found here.

Wishing you and your family good health,

Cindy