US Rep. Ashley Hinson, a Republican, says pointing to the state’s healthcare clinic closures as evidence of healthcare becoming less accessible in Iowa isn’t the full story.
“I guess they’re lying by omission is the way I would say that,” the Republican Senate candidate said on WHO Radio’s Simon Conway Show on July 9, arguing that critics of her healthcare record are “ignoring the fact that in other places new clinics have opened.” Hinson told listeners to “look at the full picture.”
The state keeps track of health facility closures and openings. And according to that record, openings have not kept pace with closures.
Since Hinson took federal office in 2021, 842 licensed healthcare entities have closed in Iowa, according to the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing’s health facilities database. That figure covers every licensed entity type, including non-providers like healthcare employment agencies. But the closures also include two hospitals, a critical access hospital, 11 rural health clinics, 46 nursing homes, 28 residential care facilities, 16 hospice facilities, and three ambulatory surgical centers.
Over the same period, the database records 468 entities opening. The state’s records likely understate openings — 41% of active entities have no initial license date on file — but by any count, Iowa has lost far more healthcare facilities than it has gained since 2021.
Iowa Starting Line reached out to Hinson about the discrepancy between this data and her remarks on the radio. Her office did not respond by press time.
Hinson’s own examples show how that math works on the ground. On the radio, she pointed to a new clinic in Traer as proof of expanding access.
“I’ve helped support a number of those expansions and, in some cases, new clinics,” she said. “There was just one that opened in Traer, Peoples Community Health Clinics.”
The clinic is real: Peoples Community Health Clinic opened a Traer location this spring. What Hinson left out is why it exists. Traer’s previous clinic, run by MercyOne, closed in December. Peoples moved into the same building. It is a federally qualified community health center, meaning patients pay a sliding scale of fees and the provider receives enhanced Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements. This is notable since Medicaid is the same program Hinson and the rest of the GOP congressional delegation voted to cut by nearly $1 trillion under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The companies closing Iowa facilities have been clear about what factors are squeezing their bottom line. When MercyOne ended labor and delivery in Clinton in May and shuttered its South Des Moines urgent care and family medicine clinics in June, it cited “recent and expected government funding and policy changes across Medicaid and Medicare.”
Before the bill passed, the CEO of Trinity Health, MercyOne’s parent company, warned the proposed Medicaid cuts would more than double the system’s annual losses to over $1 billion. By December, he told an industry publication “a lot of the damage has already been done” by the law, with the system now facing a $1.5 billion annual gap.
The data shows Iowa’s health infrastructure is trying to do more with fewer options that are more spread out.
