Congressman Has 'Open Office' In Glenwood

Mills County constituents had a chance to meet one-on-one with third district U.S. Congressman David Young last Wednesday at Glenwood City Hall.

Young’s “Open Office” meetings, which he holds every summer in each of the third district’s 16 counties, has the congressman meeting with citizens for five to 10 minutes privately to discuss opinions, concerns, and ideas about the issues being discussed in Congress or to get assistance with problems they may be having with a federal agency or program.

Young said the meetings are a great way for him to connect with the public by keeping a “finger on the pulse” of constituents in a more personalized setting.

“We do town hall meetings in every county every year and we found  some people didn’t get to ask a question or answered they wanted just because of the time constraints and they wanted a little back and forth detail,” Young said, adding individual cases more suitable to a private setting are also common topics.

“Talking to my colleagues, we’re always trying to find new ways to reach out in a public way to the people you represent. This has been really successful in every county we’ve been in.”
More than a dozen signed up for meetings with Young, who is on break officially until Sept. 5 when the 115th Congress resumes.

Ryan Sell, a Glenwood business owner, met with Young with questions on lobbyist influence on congressional policy makers and a recent change to Iowa state law impacting collective bargaining with state employees, specifically teachers.

“Iowa was kind of in a budget deficit and the main reason was because they lowered commercial property taxes about five years ago,” Sell said. “And the teachers got blamed for it and they’re paying for it. It’s the politicians and the lobbyists who are putting that agenda out there and they (teachers) aren’t the villains.”

While Sell conceded the question was less a federal issue than a state issue, he was glad to he was able to express his concern to the congressman because he sees a similarly troubling trend nationally.

Mills County Supervisor Richard Crouch was the first constituent to meet with Young.  Crouch discussed both issues as a private citizen (tax reform and health insurance) and as a supervisor (tax reform and Missouri River levy accreditation). He said he got good answers to all of his questions, especially on his concerns about Iowa’s health insurance markets.

“We don’t have a lot of choices on health insurance,” Crouch said of the public insurance market in Iowa of which only one insurer remains. “Come Dec. 31, a lot of people are out of insurance. The company that plans to stay said there might be a 43-percent increase. If you’re paying $25,000 now you’ll have to put another $12,000 in. Where is that money going to come from? A lot of people can’t afford those type of premiums.”

Young said while health care has dominated legislative talk, the House passed more than 250 bills from January through the August recess. But most of those issues concerned economic freedom, security and opportunity and transparency and accountability in government, he said. Young agrees not much is said or written about those issues.

“They’re bipartisan and they’re not controversial,” he said. “It just seems like what rules the air waves, unfortunately, is controversy. A high percentage of what we pass in Congress is bipartisan, whether it’s help for veterans or education issues, agriculture issues, anti-human trafficking issues and since we moved on health care we want to focus on making sure we have tax relief for Iowans.”

While tax reform, jobs and the economy remain high on Young’s priority list for the remainder of the congressional calendar, health care is the dominant public policy debate  for good reason. It affects millions of American and most of Young and his colleagues, he said, share a sense of urgency to find that health care sweet spot of affordability, accessibility and quality care quickly.

Young did vote for a repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act in the House earlier this year but the Senate has been less successful in its controversial pivot to possibly replace without a clear replacement plan in place.
Young said in January, and stands by his statements, that he will not support a bill that repeals the landmark universal health care law without a viable replacement also on the table.

“You can’t just pull the rug out from under people,” Young said. “The house bill was a repair, replace and a little bit of everything. And now the senate is trying that and they’ve haven’t been successful so far. They need to act. Whether it’s a piecemeal approach and a bipartisan approach, which I’ve always said is what health care is going to have to be in the end, that’s fine. The point is to make sure Iowans and everyone has access to health care that is quality and affordable.”

With Iowa losing insurers Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield from the public market Dec. 31 and only Medica offering individual plans for 2018 at higher premiums, reforming health care now, especially for Iowa, has never been so important.

“We have to somehow make sure to have an individual health care market in Iowa,” he said. “If we don’t, 72,000 Iowans are not going to be able to access insurance and what are they going to do?”

Young said “deep philosophical” differences on the role of government are driving the debate on health care, which he calls the most “complicated and emotional issues” he’s dealt with in Congress.

“Some want a heavier hand of government protection when it comes to  health care, some want it more market oriented in individual freedoms regarding health care,” he said. “It will have to be somewhere in the middle and accepted that one party isn’t going to get their way all the way on this.”

When asked if President Trump’s comments and tweets encouraging Congress to simply let the Affordable Care Act sink, helps or hurts congressional efforts to either repeal or replace, the congressman smiled.

“I see what he’s trying to do,” Young said. “He’s trying to push it forward. We’ve done our job in the House and he’s focusing on the Senate. I think regardless, the ‘bully pulpit’ and Twitter are powerful. But congressional members, in the end, answer to the people they represent. I think most agree we need to act on health care. It’s just a question of how we get there.”

Young is not in agreement with the president’s July 26 tweet declaring transgendered service men and women will be banned from serving in the military. The move, he said, was premature considering military leaders are still conducting a comprehensive study of the issue.

“First, the Department of Defense said there will be no change (to current policy on transgendered service people) right now so the president and the defense department need to get together and figure out where they are on this,” Young said. “But regardless of gender, race, religion or creed, if you meet the mental and physical qualifications as an American to serve in the military, you ought to be able to. I believe that. You give deference to the Department of Defense and the branch chiefs of course but those are my thoughts and they seem to be the thoughts of Senators Joni Ernst and Charles Grassley as well.”

Young, however, does draw the line at the military paying for gender transition surgeries. In June, Young was one of 24 Republican representatives who voted for an amendment banning military funding of gender reassignment surgeries. That measure was ultimately overruled in the latest defense spending bill.