DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa’s Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek slammed Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) during their first debate by highlighting Hinson’s role in passing Republican cuts to Medicaid spending through last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Turek emphasized several times during the debate that Hinson voted in favor of a $1 trillion reduction in spending for Medicaid, the partially federally funded health insurance program for low-income adults and children, as part of the signature legislative package of President Donald Trump’s second term.
“She voted for 110,000 Iowans to lose their healthcare in a state with a cancer crisis and a healthcare crisis,” Turek said.
Iowa is the only state in the country with a growing cancer diagnosis rate and ranks second, next to Kentucky, in the number of overall cancer cases. The University of Iowa in March estimated by the end of 2026 there will be 21,700 new cancer diagnoses in the state and 6,400 new cancer deaths.
Turek became a politician four years ago after a long career in helping Medicaid patients navigate the system to obtain durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs.
Turek himself is a permanent wheelchair user as a result of spina bifida, a genetic disorder which he says he developed because of his father’s exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The Democratic candidate said OBBBA’s cuts to Medicaid will make it harder for patients dependent on the program to get the care and supportive services they need.
“We have 27,000 disabled Iowans right now that are on Medicaid waitlists,” Turek said. “When you make these cuts to Medicaid, it means less services, less support, and more closures.”
Turek also said Iowa is “already basically dead last” in physician retention, especially for specialists like mental health providers and OB-GYNs.
Hinson said the bill’s reductions to Medicaid spending for Iowa will be offset by the Rural Health Transformation Program, which allots $50 billion divided among all 50 states over the next five years. She also said the bulk of the savings will be from implementing work requirements for able-bodied adults on the program and removing eligibility for illegal immigrants.
“We want it to be there for our working poor people who have a little skin in the game,” Hinson said. “What we did was make sure that there are commonsense work requirements so that people who are gaming the system aren’t getting these benefits, and people who are illegal are not getting these benefits.”
With respect to the state’s cancer crisis, Hinson defended her record by highlighting her work during her three terms in Congress to boost cancer research funding for the National Institutes of Health.
She also said she introduced a bill that would direct money from federal tobacco taxes to research for pediatric and rare cancers.
“We are trying to make sure we’re directing the resources exactly where they need to go, so we can better recruit providers and continue to provide the best care possible no matter what your ZIP code is,” Hinson said.
Two in 3 rural voters who responded to an Associated Press poll in September said they were at least somewhat worried about being able to afford healthcare expenses. Concern about affording healthcare topped other strains on the household budget, such as food, utilities, and housing costs.
A New York Times poll of swing-state voters published on Oct. 3 found that 45% of likely Iowa voters said the Hawkeye State is heading in the wrong direction.
Among those surveyed, Hinson held a 1-percentage-point advantage over Turek, 48% to 47%, well within the 5-point margin of error from the survey. Independents in the poll favored Turek, with 51% support, compared to Hinson at 38% support.
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Republican House candidates received a plurality, with a slightly more comfortable lead at 49% to 46% for Democrats.
A quarter of Republican respondents to the poll disapproved of Trump’s handling of the presidency.