Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, announced Monday the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid will give nearly $4.4 million in additional funding to five hospitals in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, according to a press release.

Mercy Hospital and the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics received payments of $509,898 and almost $2.4 million, respectively.

Mercy Medical Center and St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids and Unity Hospital in Muscatine also received funding.

The money is part of the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law last year, and it comes as a reward to Iowa hospitals for providing high-quality, low-cost care. It is designed to focus on the geographic disparities that face many hospitals in Iowa.

"These payments are an important step in starting to shift our nation’s health-care system to one in which health-care providers are rewarded for making patients healthy as opposed to the number of tests and procedures they order," Loebsack said in the release.

Twenty-one hospitals received additional Medicare funding across the state.

— by Brittany Trevick