Cong. Hinson. (photo from Hinson’s office)
Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson is praising the effort by Ukranians to fight Russia’s invasion of their country.
Hinson was in Israel one year ago today when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. “And had just visited the Holocaust Museum, and so it was very telling to me what it’s like when a nation is invaded, and I want Ukraine to win this war. We cannot let Russia win this war,” Hinson says.
Some have questioned whether the U.S. should continue giving Ukraine billions of dollars in aid. Hinson says the U.S. can still help.
“I think we can continue to give Ukraine lethal aid while still ensuring accountability for taxpayer dollars. And that is going to be my number one priority going forward,” Hinson.
On the legislative front, Hinson says she continues to work to ensure rural communities have the same access to health care as those in urban areas and telehealth is one way to do that. “Expanding access to telehealth services is critical to achieving that goal. And one, I guess you could call it a silver lining of the COVID 19 pandemic was that telehealth options were more readily available,” Hinson says. “And it just makes sense to expand access permanently to beneficial services and convenient options that helped Americans to meet with their doctors from their own living rooms.”
Hinson says telehealth is not just video conferencing, it also includes using the phone — which she says one of the providers in her district is doing for collecting information and following up with patients. “There are a lot of ways where we can use the technology that we have, whether it’s old technology or new technology to help support our providers and support patients in the process so they have greater access to care,” Hinson says.
She says she will work on this in her positions on the ag and FDA appropriations subcommittee. “That obviously has oversight and does the funding process for reconnect in rural broadband grants. So we will continue to look at options to help fund these projects in a targeted way to expand rural broadband to Iowans and across the country,” she says.
Hinson is a Republican from Marion who represents Iowa’s second district.