Turek criticizes Hinson’s vote for Medicaid cuts at healthcare event

As the country nears the one-year anniversary of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek said Monday he plans to show Iowans how his Republican opponent Ashley Hinson’s vote for the 2025 tax and spending law and other GOP-backed measures have hurt people in the state.

Turek, a state representative from Council Bluffs, held a roundtable discussion on healthcare Monday in Des Moines. Participants at the roundtable, including nurses, doctors, a pharmacist and a patient, discussed measures they would like to see Turek pursue if he wins the 2026 midterm election. Ideas included introducing a public option for healthcare coverage, instituting new rules for Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and measures supporting union protections for healthcare workers.

But Turek and others also brought up laws passed by Republicans and President Donald Trump in the past year they believe would need to be reversed by Congress in order to avoid further healthcare provider closures and increased costs. They cited Medicaid cuts and changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) made through the 2025 “Big, Beautiful” law.

Turek said Hinson, who currently represents Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, “voted for the largest Medicaid cut ever” when she supported the tax and spending law last year. He said the law will hurt Iowans most who are already facing difficulties obtaining healthcare.

“Two in five Iowans who rely on Medicaid in rural communities are already seeing the impact of these cuts, with rural healthcare and hospitals closing,” Turek told reporters. ” Just since the passage of the ‘Big Beautiful’ bill, five Iowa healthcare centers have announced closures, elimination of units, significant reduction in services, to both rural and urban communities. Many of these clinics seek cuts coming their way, and know they just can’t survive.”

Turek also brought up Hinson’s vote against extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax subsidies. U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn was the only member of Iowa’s all-GOP federal delegation to vote in favor of extending the enhanced ACA tax credits, which expired at the 2025, and led to higher premium costs for people receiving healthcare coverage from ACA Marketplace plans.

“When you’re looking at a state with a legitimate healthcare crisis — only state with a growing cancer rate, closed 250 more healthcare clinics than we opened — then what has she done?” Turek said. “She has voted to see 110,000 Iowans lose their health care, thousands more lose their basic food assistance, just to give tax breaks to billionaires. Voted against the ACA subsidies, as you heard out here, what that has done to Iowans, seeing their healthcare premiums double, triple, quadruple.

“She’s not looked out for Iowans, she has just looked out for billionaires, large corporations, lobbyists, and donors … that’s not what Iowans are, and that’s not what we stand for, that’s not what I’m going to be up there. I’m not taking a nickel of corporate PAC money, I’m going up there to fight for Iowa and Iowans, and that’s going to be certainly fighting for their healthcare,” Turek said.

Billy Fuerst, Hinson’s campaign communications director, said Hinson has taken steps in Congress to make healthcare more affordable for Iowans, including support for measures regulating PBMs as well as for the $209 million going to Iowa healthcare facilities as part of the federal Rural Health Transformation Program to help offset expected reductions in rural Medicaid spending as part of the tax and spending law.

“Ashley understands that healthcare is too expensive for Iowa families. That’s why she’s working across the aisle to lower costs by taking on Big Pharma and Big health insurance,” Fuerst said. “Ashley worked with both parties to deliver millions in funding for healthcare access and cancer research. She passed bipartisan legislation to end stillbirths and is leading the charge to make birth control available over the counter at local pharmacies. While Josh Turek plays politics with Iowans’ healthcare, Ashley will keep working to expand access and lower costs for Iowa families.”

Roundtable participants, however, argued that Medicaid cuts are having a large impact in Iowa, even in metro areas. State Rep. Austin Baeth, D-Des Moines, a physician, said as an internal medicine doctor at a primary care clinic, he encounters the impacts of cuts to federal healthcare funding firsthand.

“The damages of these federal policies like the ‘Big Beautiful’ bill are really apparent, because I have patients who are no longer my patients because they don’t have the health insurance to come see me,” Baeth said.

Baeth said he has worked with patients who know they will soon lose their health insurance and ask him to “front load” prescriptions and tests in order to try to remain healthy as they know they will not be able to access care for a significant period of time.

He and other healthcare providers at the discussion, including Amy Hennings, a critical care nurse at UnityPoint, said not only does this put patients in potentially dangerous situations, but it will also cost more for the healthcare provider when an individual must seek emergency care for a problem that could have been addressed through available medicine and treatment.

Turek, who was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, said he personally has struggled with lack of access to preventative care.

“Even from personal experience, I use a cushion that prevents me from getting a pressure sore …,” because a pressure sore would leave him “laid up in bed,” Turek said. “I mean, I’ve seen many, many individuals with disabilities have lost their lives sadly from issues like pressure sores. And to get qualified for a pressure-relieving cushion, I have to show that I’ve had issues with pressure sores. And it’s like it’s just totally backwards the way the whole entire healthcare system is working.”

When Turek asked for what “solutions” providers and patients would like a U.S. senator to put forward, Larry Severidt, a primary care physician at Broadlawns Medical Center, said, “we need some kind of nationalized health care system,” bringing up U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” proposal as one way to implement a national system.

Turek said he believed Congress should set a higher floor for minimum healthcare coverage.

“If I could only get one thing done in the United States Senate, this would be the thing that I would like to get done, to ensure that every single American has access to a baseline level of healthcare coverage,” Turek said. “And I think that that best route is through a public option, a public-private hybrid system.”

Speaking with reporters, Turek said he would support allowing people to keep their private insurance if wanted, but said “every single Iowa and every American would have a baseline level of coverage — very similar to like what you see with a VA hospital, or what you see with an option like Medicare.” He said there are many “models” of how this could be achieved, but said he supports some form of a public option because he believes “healthcare is a human right.”

“In the Iowa Legislature, it’s been something I’ve really championed, is carrying the flag and fighting for better access, Medicaid improvements, and fighting for the most vulnerable,” Turek said. “Because that’s who it really affects the most: children, the elderly, the disabled.”