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Iowa early News Headlines: Wed., 11/18/15

News

November 18th, 2015 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Des Moines-based hospital and medical clinic company UnityPoint Health is getting into the health insurance business. The company says it has partnered with Bloomington, Minnesota, health care provider and insurer HealthPartners to create a health insurance company to be called HealthPartners Unity Point Health. The joint venture is seeking licenses from insurance regulators in Iowa and Illinois and plans to begin selling Medicare Advantage policies late next year. Hospitals have increasingly entering such ventures to create their own insurance companies.

CHICAGO (AP) — A U.S. judge has acquitted a Pakistani physician over allegations that he inappropriately touched an Iowa girl next to him on an American Airlines flight from New York to Chicago. The judge returned not guilty verdicts in Muhammad Asif Chaudhry’s case.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Regulators have confirmed a delay in funding earmarked for the University of Iowa’s climate change research center. The Iowa Utilities Board has collected $5.15 million from utilities that is legislatively mandated to support the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research and the Iowa Energy Center at Iowa State University. The board confirmed yesterday that it’s delaying $772,000 earmarked for the center.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Governor Terry Branstad has joined a lawsuit that challenges new federal rules on the oversight of smaller waterways, tributaries and wetlands. Branstad says he has intervened in a case pending in North Dakota against the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The rules are on hold as federal courts consider a number of lawsuits over their implementation.