A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper
US Rep. Randy Feenstra and Rep. Ashley Hinson joined ranks with House Republicans to vote against subsidies for health insurance policies offered on the federal exchange. Feenstra is running for governor and Hinson is running for US senator. The vote could haunt them next November.
Affordability is the issue, whether health care or housing.
Thanks to 17 House Republicans who bolted on the issue and voted with Democrats, the subsidies were extended for three years after being stripped from the Big, Beautiful Bill that gives tax cuts to the wealthy while giving the rest of us higher costs. The House bill could lead to a compromise in the Senate.
Democrats will be sure to remind voters next fall who didn’t support extending the subsidies, which are popular.
If the Senate doesn’t arrive at a compromise, it will be a red-hot issue for the midterm elections. Republicans can wave around health-savings accounts but that won’t address what ails health care access. People can’t afford the insurance, plain and simple, for plans that deny patients care and choice.
Medicare is tremendous. Everyone deserves it, young or old. Medicare recipients can see any doctor they want, anywhere they would like. It’s affordable because the insurance company is not in there slicing out a hefty chunk of profit.
If you don’t like the Obamacare subsidies, come up with something better than health savings accounts.
Feenstra must plead a case that he understands how to administer Medicaid, which has turned into a shambles under Republican stewardship. Rural health care providers and nursing homes are closing. He offers more of the same.
Hinson said she was voting against waste, fraud and abuse by voting against subsidies. Voters who buy private health insurance should dwell on the fact that Hinson thinks they are welfare bums and fraudsters.
Feenstra and Hinson are shills for the insurance industry. That could weight them down in statewide elections if Democrats are awake to the scam.
No matter what the government says, we will continue to grill pork loin because it is good, and summer is so short as is life life even if lived in a dietary straitjacket. Fortunately for us carnivorous milk drinkers, the USDA came out with a new food pyramid with meat and dairy squarely on top. In fact, it says you should eat twice as much meat. We would try, but it’s hard to double what already is a daily meat gorge. Quarter-pounder with cheese? Pish posh.
Actually, we know that everything in moderation is good except when your meat pyramid panel is comprised with people vested in meat and dairy production and processing. RFK2, the health czar, had said that livestock production was the bane of the planet, but that was before Trump and before feeding on bear.
Science is in short supply these days, like that which told us that putting vegetables first is the healthiest way to go. A sampling of meat and cheese is good. So is cottage cheese. That thinking has been changed to throw a beef orgy.
This pyramid is built on lies. It denies the science. It recommends immoderation. It is concocted by the food industry.
Sure, they urge less processed junk food. Cut the snacks in the plastic bag. Pop by the quart is not so good, whether it is diet or high fructose corn syrup.
We could not care less what the government thinks of our predilection for pork. It does shape the school lunch program. The meatpackers and big dairy are deciding what is good for Johnny and Susie based on moving more product. It’s all so dishonest, but if you marinate it long enough you can make almost anything palatable to serve a hungry voter.
GOP statehouse shuffle
State Rep. Zach Dieken, R-Granville, announced that he will not seek re-election to a seat covering O’Brien, Cherokee and western Buena Vista counties so he can devote more of his attention to abolishing abortion in Iowa. The state trooper was elected in 2022. Considering that abortion has been banned in Iowa at the sign of a heartbeat, we’re not sure there is much more for Dieken to do on that front but raise money. Zealotry is a growing business in Iowa.
One would think that if Cherokee County Supervisor Shane Bellefy, R-Cherokee, wanted to run for the Iowa Legislature, this would be his opening. Instead, Bellefy announced that he intends to challenge Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, in a June primary. Keith Glienke of Hanover announced this week that he will seek the Republican nomination for the House seat held by Dieken. Challenging Evans, who has been reliably conservative, is a tall order. Bellefy is ambitious.
Chris Jones of Iowa City is the chief critic of Iowa’s agriculture industry, and so he announced that he will run for Secretary of Agriculture as a Democrat. He challenges incumbent Secretary Mike Naig, R-Cylinder, who positions himself as an amiable defender of the agrichemical production paradigm as expected of a former lobbyist. Also this week, Wade Dooley, a board member of the Practical Farmers of Iowa sustainable agriculture group, announced he would run for the Democratic nomination.
The authority of the office is mainly administrative. Its chores could be swept up by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. You could eliminate the job were this not Iowa, where agriculture is sacred.
Jones is furious about our rural consolidation and agricultural pollution. That’s what motivates him. Naig could have run for governor if he were that ambitious. This is a nice state job that gives him some sway. Naig dismisses Jones as anti-farmer and laughs off another guy from Iowa City, while Jones mines real anger across the state over pollution, stench and declining farm numbers. Enter Dooley, a sixth-generation farmer from Marshalltown, who is not as strident in tone as Jones.
It will benefit the state greatly if these candidates can actually engage in a debate about what agriculture should look like in Iowa. People are alarmed by rising cancer rates that are widely associated with petrochemicals. Rural voters make the connections between declining prospects and polluted water. Naig chairs the Gulf of Mexico hypoxia task force of Corn Belt states with their huge nitrate loads. Unfortunately, the establishment politician usually is loathe to engage the critic because it can only do him harm. It will at least be interesting to hear Jones and Dooley describe an alternative vision.
Naig will have all the money he needs and support from the corporate interest groups. Iowans favor incumbents, especially if they are Republican. Jones and Dooley must challenge the Democrats to commit themselves to clean air and water. Iowa needs a fulsome discussion.
Iowa remains in the discussion to be a lead-off state in the Democratic presidential nomination process, according to The New York Times, quoting the heavyweights. They want a Midwestern state early on, along with the South (South Carolina) the East (New Hampshire) and the West (Nevada). Iowa is too White, the old rap goes. But since the Republicans refuse to give up on us, it has the Democrats thinking twice.
Progressives are groping for a way to reach rural voters. Iowa is a good place to start because it was purple not so long ago. If you can rebuild a base in Iowa, you can do it in Ohio.
There is a good argument that the Democratic caucuses led to the Iowa party’s demise by nationalizing the political culture and issues. It appears that reinstating the Iowa caucuses upfront cannot hurt the party that has been flat on its back for several years. There is only one way to go. Democrats ceded the field to Republicans.
It is plausible that the national party would have fared better if it had listened to Iowa leading up to the 2020 elections. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg were on top, Biden and Harris barely registered. Now, Sanders and Buttigieg remain party heart throbs. Biden and Harris, not so much. Ignore Iowa at your peril.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here