Rep. Lindsay James says she’d roll back Obamacare cuts in Congress

Across the 2nd District, which spans counties in northeast Iowa, James said people and organizations have been feeling the hurt of Affordable Care Act cuts and rising healthcare, grocery, gas, agriculture and other costs. Iowans have shared with her stories of having to choose between paying for utility bills or winter clothing, rent or food, and even rent or insulin.

“These are the kinds of impossible choices that people are making, and they’re doing it in the wealthiest country in the world,” James said. “And I think all of us can agree that that is not right.”

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As many as 27,000 Iowans “were about to lose their healthcare” after the bill’s passage, she said, a clinic has closed in Traer and more than 100 medical professionals in Grinnell and Mason City were laid off.  This is happening as Iowa maintains the highest rising cancer rates in the country and holds second place for the number of cancer cases.

James proposed reversing Affordable Care Act cuts in order to bring money back into rural Iowa, as well as doing “accountability and transparency work” relating to the pharmaceutical industry and its rising costs to customers. She told reporters she also wants “the billions of dollars being spent on an endless war with no plan,” referring to U.S. operations in Iran, to come back to the U.S.

Her opponent would not fix these issues, she said, but would continue to use his authority in government to better his own financial situation.

“There are policies that we can put into place that will change the realities of everyday working families here in our state,” James said. “But again, you’re going to need someone with courage of conviction who’s willing to take on the corruption in Washington, D.C., and have this fight.”

Joe Mitchell, James’s Republican opponent for the 2nd Congressional District race, gave his own soapbox speech to fairgoers on Aug. 14, where he said he would combat corruption and “stop the lawmaker-to-lobbyist pipeline.” Republican Ashley Hinson currently holds the district seat, but her campaign for U.S. Senate will leave it open.

James called it “laughable” that Mitchell is promoting anti-corruption in his campaign as someone who she described as “a state legislator turned lobbyist.” Mitchell said in his speech he never intended to be a lobbyist and was never one, a point James disputed by pointing to his founding of the Iowa Real Estate Developers Association.

She said he’s benefited in his previous role as a regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development from advocating for and passing certain policies.

Mitchell Campaign Manager Drew Johns said in an emailed statement that James’s remarks are a “lie” and that “it’s dishonest to say something like this but that is just par for the course” for her in this campaign.

“Lindsay James is a Portland Liberal who moved to Iowa and voted to raise taxes and voted to give illegal immigrants taxpayer-funded benefits,” Johns said in texted statement. “Joe Mitchell is a lifelong Iowan who builds houses and wants to dismantle the corrupt system in Washington, D.C. That’s the choice in this election.”

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