Fighting for Access to Quality and Affordable Healthcare

There are certain American values that should not be up for debate – in Iowa, in Washington, or anywhere else. Healthcare is a human right, and extending access to quality and affordable care to every American must be a top priority in the U.S. Senate. I won’t be afraid to fight for universal health care – including a public option that will guarantee access to a quality and affordable health care plan to every single Iowan.

I’ll fight back against all attempts to raise premiums, kick Iowans off their existing health coverage, or reduce the services covered by their insurance, such as annual preventive care checkups, maternity care, or addiction and mental health treatment.

And we must lower the cost of prescription drugs and hold the drug industry accountable for their relentless price gouging. In Congress, I was proud to vote to pass legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate with Big Pharma for lower prices, but it was blocked in the Senate. We must get that done, as well as allowing the reimportation of FDA-approved drugs from Canada at lower prices and bringing more affordable generic drugs to market faster so the pharmaceutical industry can’t rake in massive profits off monopoly power.

On the other hand, Sen. Grassley has spent years working to protect the profits of the insurance and drug companies that fund his campaigns. He helped write the law that banned Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices, and to prevent competition by keeping Iowans from having access to lower cost generic drugs sooner. He has voted to allow insurance companies to charge women more than men for the same care and to deny coverage to Iowans with a pre-existing condition. And he’s voted to allow insurers to refuse to cover critical services such as maternity care or mental health or opioid abuse treatment.

Iowans deserve representation in Washington that works for them to improve our healthcare system and expand coverage and services that uplift families, rather than for insurance and drug companies. It’s time for the partisan political games that have too often controlled the healthcare conversation to end.