| Marianette Miller-Meeks |
Talk |
01/09/2026 |
WHO-AM |
Des Moines-Ames |
07:07 CST |
Click for Audio / Transcript |
<p>Speaker 1:</p><p>But now, let's go off to the Davidson family dentistry news line and talk to the first district congresswoman, the representative of the fighting, Iowa's fighting first congressional district, Marinette Miller Meeks. Good morning ma 'am, thank you so much for joining us.</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 2:</p><p>Good morning, how are you?</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 1:</p><p>I am well, thank you. How's the swamp this morning?</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 2:</p><p>Well, so far it's pretty quiet, but it will get it'll get busier in about 30 minutes.</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 1:</p><p>I know, no doubt about it. I know the question in everybody's mind, you've been talking about it for some time as well. In fact, I think there's a new video out, you're talking about the affordability question. And no matter how, you know, politicians like to phrase this, it is. I mean, it is the economy. That's the number one issue. What we're paying for all kinds of things in our lives, that's what we're talking about first and foremost. What is Congress doing? And what do you want to see done on the affordability question?</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 2:</p><p>So, I think, number one, one of the first things we did in 2025 was to look at increasing domestic energy production to help lower energy costs. And I think in Iowa, I love going back to Iowa because when I come out of the airport, I see the prices of gas, gasoline, and when I traveled the district, gasoline is now down to even below where it was when President Biden came into office. So in many places, it's below $2 a gallon. But it's not just energy cost as you put gas in your tank. 60 % of food cost is energy. Yep. So that helps lower the cost of food. We're also looking at what we can do to make health care more affordable as we know health care costs have gone up, not just on the Obamacare, but for everybody, employers, anybody on commercial based insurance, small businesses, and the self -insured. So we passed a bill in the House for lowering health care premiums for All Americas Act, but there's still more we need to do, more that we're doing on PVM reform to lower prescription drug costs, and then also tackling housing affordability. So we've got several bills that are being considered and ways to lower houses, price of houses, which also includes rent, but then also how to help young people, first -time home buyers, to get into homes. So those are the things we're looking at going forward into 2026. And, you know, I'm looking forward to continuing to work to make the cost of living more affordable and the American dream more available to people. As the first person to ever go to college in my family and, you know, a family of 10, I know how important the American dream is, how it drives many of us, and we want to make sure that that's available to everybody.</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 1:</p><p>Health care is, as you mentioned, a big part of that affordability question. You had sponsored and the House voted on your bill, reforms to health care. Yesterday, though, we saw 17 House Republicans vote with Democrats to extend Obamacare subsidies for three years. Now, that might be an affordability question for a lot of people who are benefiting from those subsidies, but they ultimately cost and raise the price of things. Quick question on that front. What did you think about that vote? Where is all of this going?</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 2:</p><p>Well, I hope that it doesn't cause Congress to lose momentum on making health care affordable for everyone, simply putting subsidies so a small segment's premiums are lowered. And as we know, the enhanced COVID -era tax credits went to higher income individuals, and those subsidies go directly to insurance companies. So there's no incentive for insurance companies to lower the premium. And as a matter of fact, if you're a small business owner, if you're an employer, and your health care premiums are going up, which they are, I've talked to many Iowans about this, and you ask why are your premiums going up, you know, often there is no response and it's proprietary information. So I'm looking at that as well. But we really need to get to what's driving health care costs to be high and how do we actually put forth policy that lowers health care costs and insurance premiums for everyone, not just a select few. And we certainly need to have reforms, because as we already know, the Government Accountability Office, the GAO report, showed that there's tremendous fraud among the exchanges. It's billions of dollars, so we need to address the fraud component, as well as lowering health insurance premiums and healthcare costs for all people. And I can't emphasize that enough, so we need to continue to work on those reforms. We did some reforms in the Working Families Tax Cut, the One Big Beautiful bill, with direct primary care, which HSAs, with some CBM reform. We, in 2023, the Republicans had passed lower cost, greater transparency, looking at getting more competition and more competition in the insurance market. So I hope we do not lose momentum just because the tax credits may or may not be extended. It's important that we realize healthcare costs have gone up for every single person and we need to do our best to lower those. I think what we've seen is that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is unaffordable. And so we need to address those failures within Obamacare that have led to high insurance costs.</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 1:</p><p>Yeah, no doubt about it. Those tax credits have gone directly into the pockets of insurers. That's who's making a lot of money out of this thing and then ultimately the average individual is getting soaked. Representative Marinette Miller Meeks always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us on the WHO Morning Show.</p><p><br></p><p>Speaker 2:</p><p>you</p> |