Iowa 3rd District Democrat Congresswoman Cindy Axne, Saturday afternoon, addressed a handful of persons in the Atlantic High School Media Center, where she held her “Connect with your Congresswoman” event, one of 16 she’s holding, and are designed to “Protect our Democracy.” Axne spoke about Congress working on Health Care initiatives for Iowans and Americans across the country. Some of her own bills including working on physician shortages within our communities, or segments of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) that are preventing small communities from getting access to the health care they need and addressing those, by closing a loophole that requires a physician to be on-site for out patient therapeutic care that doesn’t require a physician. Axne says another physician should be able to provide that service.

Congresswoman Cindy Axne (Ric Hanson/photo 11/23/19)

To that end, she says she wrote a law to eliminate that regulatory oversight for Critical Access Hospitals and rural healthcare clinics. She said Congress is also working on “Big healthcare initiatives, including three key areas of a Prescription Drug Bill that will reduce the cost of prescription drugs within Medicare. One of the areas is to reduce the cost of prescription drugs within Medicare by negotiating prices for the most expensive drugs, of which there are currently more than 250. That would also ultimately reduce the price of the drug for everyone across the country. There is also a proposal in the bill to put a cap of $2,000 on how much persons with Medicare would have to pay for prescription drugs.  The third piece of the bill would put in-place a piece that says American will pay no more than 20% over what someone in another country pays for one of the drugs produced in the U-S. Right now, she says we pay anywhere from 4-6-10-times over than what other companies charge for the same kinds of drugs.

Axne says the non-partisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimates the bill would save billions of dollars. Axne said also they’ve working to move the USMCA (U.S.-Mexico-Canada) Trade Agreement. Rural Atlantic farmer/resident Denise O’Brien took issue with that, saying it’s not any different than NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement). She said “I’ve worked on that bit in the 1990’s and I’ve worked on it all the way through, and yes, it is important but…the tariff’s [and, Axne chipped-in the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) waivers]…that push is a false narrative. There’s not a lot of difference [between the USMCA and NAFTA], and Canada hasn’t claimed it yet either.”

Axne said the things that have hurt our economy the most, is the trade war with China, and the RFS. She said “It’s just real easy for folks to say that the democratic majority House is not bringing up the USMCA. That’s a lie.) She says she will keep pushing for it because it’s important to our State. She warned if the trade war continues and there’s no wiggle room on the RFS, “We will continue to see commodity prices at all-time lows, and markets close.” She said the Japan deal looks good for us, but we’re losing a lot of market share with China that we won’t get back.

Axne spoke a child who attended the event with her mother, about how she’s working to help young people get a better education and prepare for the future. She said that includes putting money in our public school systems, Pell Grants for those who don’t want to attend a 4-year college and might want to study a trade with that type of assistance. The man she defeated in the last election, former 3rd District Congressman David Young, said during a recent visit to the KJAN Studios, that Axne’s record hasn’t been good for Iowa, and that she has “High expectations for herself, but low deliverables.” Axne said (in reference to Young) “Show me some facts.”

She said “That says nothing. The reason that he has nothing to say is because my record has been really good for Iowa. I’d love to see what he’s got to prove that, because from what I can see, all he’s tried to do is tie me to some big socialist narrative, with some folks out in New York.” She says “Please take a look at my record…I currently hold a much better percent of bipartisan votes [in the House] than he ever did.”