Iowa congressional candidate Christina Bohannan says people of all ages should be able to buy into Medicare

PELLA — Democrat Christina Bohannan said she believes making substantial reforms to federal health care programs would be one of the most impactful ways to support struggling rural communities in the state, as she makes her third attempt to represent Iowa’s 1st Congressional District.

During an event in Pella on Sunday, Bohannan emphasized the importance of restoring funding reductions to Medicaid included in a federal budget reconciliation bill enacted last year. She also said the extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies is needed, and called for allowing Americans to buy into Medicare at any age and including dental, hearing and vision coverage.

“I think any American should be able to buy into Medicare at any age. Now, I'm not talking about socialism,” Bohannan said. “We're not saying that we're just going to hand out everything for free. It allows people who already like their health care to keep it. If they like their insurance, if they like their employer-provided health care, great, you can keep that.

“But it does allow people to buy into Medicare, which is very good health care, and it means that you're not beholden to a particular employer or something like that for your health care,” she continued.

The Sunday event was the first of a conversation series being hosted by the Marion County Democratic Party to hear from Democratic candidates in the 1st Congressional District.

Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor and former state lawmaker from Iowa City, is mounting her third campaign to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a district that political forecasters, including Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Cook Political Report, have labeled a “toss-up,” meaning either party could win it.

Miller-Meeks was reelected to a third term in 2024 after she defeated Bohannan in a rematch of 2022, when Miller-Meeks won by 7 percentage points.

The margin in 2024 was much tighter. Miller-Meeks won by fewer than 800 votes of about 427,000 cast — or roughly 0.2 percent — following a recount requested by Bohannan. Miller-Meeks' win helped her party pad its thin majority in the U.S. House and retain control of all four of Iowa’s congressional seats.

Bohannan outperformed the top of the ticket by 8 points in the 20-county district in the 2024 general election.

Health care worker Travis Terrell of Tiffin also is seeking the Democratic nomination.

Taylor Wettach, an international trade and national security lawyer from Muscatine who also was running for the party nomination, announced Monday he is dropping his congressional bid and instead will run for Iowa state auditor.

On Sunday, Bohannan criticized Miller-Meeks for actions Bohannan said have hurt rural Iowans, including voting for the GOP-backed budget reconciliation bill dubbed the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law this summer by President Donald Trump, which reduced spending to Medicaid, and not voting for legislation to extend enhanced ACA subsidies.

“Representative Miller-Meeks and other politicians in Washington consistently put their party loyalty, maximizing corporate profits and billionaire tax cuts over everyday Iowans, and that's our rural communities that are getting hit the hardest,” Bohannan said. “We are not going to make our rural communities thrive again until we have new representation, real representation here in southeast Iowa.”

The federal budget reconciliation package enacted in July is expected to reduce future Medicaid spending by $941 billion over 10 years and increase the number of uninsured people by 10 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

On Jan. 8, U.S. House lawmakers narrowly passed a measure restoring ACA subsidies that lapsed at the end of last year. Miller-Meeks voted against the measure.

In December, Miller-Meeks sponsored legislation that would expand association health plans, allowing small businesses and self-employed workers to band together to negotiate coverage.

A spokesperson for Miller-Meeks says that she delivered the “largest tax cuts for working and middle-class families in history,” provided a $6,000 tax cut for Iowa seniors and expanded the Child Tax Credit to $2,200.

"Iowans deserve principled leaders who deliver results. As evident from every aspect of her political career, Christina Bohannan is anything but that. Look no further than her radical progressive leftist voting record when she was in the Iowa house,” a spokesperson for Miller-Meeks said in a statement to the Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau. “(Miller-Meeks will) keep fighting to lower costs for ALL Iowans whether in the grocery aisle or in healthcare, protect Iowa farmland from the (Chinese Communist Party), and make life more prosperous, because with Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa always comes first."

In December, Miller-Meeks announced the Iowa congressional delegation has secured $209 million in federal funding for rural Iowa hospitals through the Rural Health Transformation Program that dedicates $50 billion in grants over 10 years to states.

Supporting rural communities

Bohannan listed a slate of focus areas in rural Iowa for lawmakers to address, including access to child care, aging infrastructure, housing availability, water quality and affordability, but noted that tariffs enacted by Trump over the past year are causing the most significant “ripple effects” throughout the economy.

She attributed Iowa’s struggling farm economy to the tariffs that were rolled out alongside the increasing prices of seeds, fertilizer and farm equipment and policies implemented by Republican lawmakers, adding that the loss of jobs in manufacturing and agriculture is contributing to the state’s brain drain.

“There have been a lot of choices over the past several years that have driven people out of our rural communities, people who would love to stay in our small towns and rural areas, but literally have no choice,” Bohannan said. “I think that a lot of this can be reversed and I think that it's imperative that we elect people who are really making this a priority.”