Ernst, Grassley share thoughts on AHCA, shutdown

     Sen. Joni Ernst and Sen. Chuck Grassley both took questions from Iowa reporters last week on a wide variety of topics: repealing and replacing “Obamacare,” the government shutdown that was avoided, and the President’s most recent executive order allowing for religious groups and churches to have religious liberty and endorse political candidates.

     On Thursday, May 4, President Trump signed the executive order during the Day of Prayer service at the White House. When asked her thoughts on the order, Ernst was honest in her response, saying that the text of that order was not released ahead of time.

     “This has been a very hot topic lately,” she said. “I do know that the President is very intent on protecting those religious liberties. He’s been very clear about that through his campaign, and I applaud him for taking a look at that issue.”

     Also on May 4, hours after the conference calls with both Senators, the House passed its version of the AHCA (American Health Care Act of 2017), by 217-213 votes. The House’s version of the healthcare bill now goes to the Senate.

     Ernst said he honestly does not know how she plans to vote on the bill.

     “I want to talk with various Iowans that have expressed some difficulties and run through some different scenarios and see what Iowans are affected through the proposals,” she explained. “We need to make sure we’re moving forward in the best we can. It’s going to take a lot of work.”

     Ernst said the Senate would take a thorough, thoughtful look at the bill, making its own recommendations.

     “Knowing that we could, very shortly, have many families that have absolutely no options for insurance, it’s worrisome,” she continued. “We have to address this, sooner rather than later, but we can’t just rush something through.”

     Grassley said while he’s not sure what the Senate bill would look like at this point in time, he would like to see “contain a lot of principles Republicans have been talking about for the past six to seven years.” Some of those initiatives include: doing away with individual mandates, doing away with the employer mandate, having greater emphasis on health savings accounts, selling insurance across state lines, and medical malpractice reform.

     “Some of those key issues are in the House bill,” he offered. “But the bottom line is to make health insurance affordable and accessible for everybody; to give people that don’t have the capability of buying insurance polices help through tax credits.”

     Two weeks ago, amidst the House and Senate debating the federal budget, the President took to social media saying a government shutdown will be needed to September if both sides cannot come to a consensus. Ernst said she has to disagree with Trump’s remarks.

     “I don’t think the government shutdown is the best solution,” she said. “I think we should be working really hard to avoid that by having a good spending package, one that allows our government to work effectively, efficiently, and one that is looking out for our taxpayers as well.”

     Ernst shared that in her short time in the Senate, the national debt has grown. She said Iowan’s share of the debt sits at $61,000.

     “We really need to take a look at the way we do our spending,” she added. “We’re going to have to make tough decisions. If we can avoid a government shutdown, that’s what we should be doing. It means we’ll be doing our job if we can think critically about these spending bills.”

     Grassley offered that he and Ernst, tough, did vote against the spending bill that was recently presented. However, he said it did seem to reflect bi-partisan efforts, “something that’s pretty rare around here.”

     He said he voted against the bill because it was set to increase the deficit.