Candidates for Iowa’s second district seat in congress agree restoring jobs and boosting the economy are major issues, but they don’t agree on the proper remedies. 

The four candidates met Monday afternoon in Coralville for a debate.  Republican candidate Marionnette Miller-Meeks called the new federal health care reform bill a job-killer. “How would I address that? One, I would work on repealing the Affordable Health Care Act because the small businesses that I talk to find that to be extraordinarily cumbersome,” Miller-Meeks said. 

Congressman Dave Loebsack, a Democrat from Mount Vernon, voted for the bill.  “I’ve talked to numerous small business owners who find it difficult to compete with larger companies because of the costs of health insurance,” Loebsack said during the debate.  “This bill is going to help tens of thousands of small business owners provide that kind of insurance for those folks (so) they can compete with those companies.”

The other two second district candidates — Libertarian Gary Sicard and John Tack of the Constitution Party said the health care reform law is not only bad for business, it’s unconstitutional.