The legal challenge of the Affordable Care Act that will be heard next month by the Supreme Court was the top topic debated last night by the two major-party candidates in Iowa’s second congressional district.
Republican State Senator Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Ottumwa is an eye doctor. “Both parties should be coming together, planning ahead and trying to determine what they can do should the Affordable Care Act be struck down,” Miller-Meeks said. “Health care needs to be affordable, it needs to be portable, it needs to be accessible and it needs to be able to give us choice. I have long argued for this and the ACA failed us in that regard.”
Democratic candidate Rita Hart of Wheatland is a former teacher and a former member of the state senate. “While my opponent says she has a plan, that she wants to protect existing conditions, the fact is there’s been four years that have gone by here where the Republicans could’ve put a plan forward. They have not done it,” Hart said. “That makes me think that it really doesn’t exist.”
The debate was sponsored by The Quad Cities Times and KWQC TV in Davenport. The candidates are competing for the seat Democratic Congressman Dave Loebsack of Iowa City has held since 2007. Donald Trump won the district in 2016 as Loebsack won reelection. Loebsack won again in 2018, then announced he’d retire after his seventh term ends.
(By Kate Payne, Iowa Public Radio)