This post is a bit late, but you’ll have to forgive me. I’m working on a lot of stories and posts write now, as well as preparing for midterms, and you know how the college life is.
Last Wednesday, Chet Culver and Jim Nussle participated in a health care forum sponsored by the National Health Policy Council, AARP, and many other oragnizations on Drake’s campus. After participating in the sign wars between the two campaigns, I settled into Sheslow Auditorium and listened to both candidates speak and then answer questions from Dean Borg, moderator of Iowa Press on IPTV.
It seemed to me that Nussle spoke a lot about the problems facing America’s health care system and then offered abstract solutions and spoke in platitudes about what he would do as governor. He tried to score some points by talking about his work to “increase funding for the NIH [National Institute’s of Health]” to work on existing stem cell lines. However, it was a blatant lie and the Culver campaign called him on it here. In general, it seems like while Nussle attempted to make it look like he was answering questions, all he was merely doing is offering phrases that addressed the problems nationally and then talked about hypotheticals to fix them.
On the other hand, Chet Culver came prepared to talk about health care with concrete proposals. First, he noted the 46 million Americans without coverage — 6 million of those have joined the ranks in the last 6 years (coincidence? I think not). As governor, he wants to make sure that the 300,000 or so Iowans without coverage get coverage. Secondly, he talked about Medicare Part D and the donut hole that it will ultimately create and leave for tens of thousands of Iowa seniors. As governor, he would have the state step up and help the seniors by providing supplemental asistance from the state to cover the shortfall. He explicitly said, “We can’t wait on Washington.” Supplemental assistance would be prioritized based on need and the number of prescription drugs the senior has. You can read more from a Culver press release about Part D here.
Culver also spoke directly about expanding Hawk-i by getting the 58,000 Iowa kids without insurance to be covered under it as well as expanding the program to help their parents get coverage too, if they needed it. Finally, he spoke about his support for stem cell research and his plan for a center for regenerative medicine at the University of Iowa.
When it came to the Q & A session with Dean Borg, Culver discussed preventative health care, marketing the Hawk-i program to help bring families who don’t know about it under the program if they qualify, as well as talking about taking care of the costs of these programs: Getting an extra $150 - $215 million from an increase in the cigarette tax up to $1. Jim Nussle opposes the increase yet still wants to take the $90 million generated from the current taxes out of the general fund and put it towards health care, but never said how he’d make up for the $90 million gap that he would create in the general fund.
Overall, you can read the news report on the forum here. And the Register’s editorial board took a look at the health care issue yesterday. Here’s what they say about future examinations:
“This is the first of an occasional series of editorials on key issues in the governor’s race, leading up to the Register’s endorsement editorial, to be published Sunday, Oct. 29. Upcoming editorials will focus on the candidates’ plans for education, the environment, taxes, renewable fuels and population shifts.”
In general, they took Culver’s plan and ran with it, calling it the better plan. They wrote that Nussle has a record on health care in congress that is “not a record that has improved our health-care system.”
You can read Culver’s Health Care Plan here on ChetCulver.com.
