DES MOINES, Iowa —
Tonight delivered the last face-to-face meeting of these two before Election Day.
Out of nearly a dozen topics, Zach Lahn and Rob Sand got asked about mental health access in Iowa.
The state ranks toward the bottom in the US for available psychiatric beds.
Zach Lahn says it’s necessary to prioritize support for what’s a foundational part of society.
“I believe we do need to open mental health facilities. I do believe that there are people that are in prisons in our state that need to be in mental health facilities, and actually, that’s hurting everybody involved,” Lahn said.
He says the lack of psychiatric care hurts families.
The topic got personal for Rob Sand.
He revealed the person who broke into his family’s home last Thanksgiving was a person with schizophrenia. “I remember having a conversation with his sister. We reached out, and she was just happy to know that he was alive because she hadn’t heard from him for three years,” Sand recalled.
“If you’re one of the families that struggled to find a bed for people, we’re there with you; we’ve struggled,” Sand said.
He tied the issue to the privatization of Medicaid, which he would reverse.
This debate lacked the intensity of the first but covered a dozen or so topics. There were even a few the two candidates for governor agreed on such as needing to address water quality to reduce Iowa’s high incidence of cancer and banning eminent domain for carbon pipeline projects.
One area that stood out: Upcoming work requirements for Medicaid, part of federal law.
There are 600,000 Iowans who get their health care from the program for low-income or disabled persons.
That takes effect on Dec. 1.
Sand says there’s some wiggle room for a state governor. He says there’s a difference between paperwork requirements and work requirements.
Sand described a man from Arkansas who was working, got sick and missed a deadline. That man lost his health care.
“I want able-bodied people to be working,” he said. “At the end of the day, I think it’s incredibly important that public benefit programs are there for the people who deserve them.”
Lahn says work requirements are a big issue with the Medicaid expansion that happened under the Affordable Care Act.
He claimed in the debate that the program allowed able-bodied Americans who were not looking to work to enroll in the program.
“If you’re an able-bodied adult that can seek work, you should be working work and now with this, I believe there’s also a volunteering opportunity,” he said. “But I think one other part of this that we need to make sure we’re focused on, too, is to make sure that only the citizens of the state that are eligible for these programs are getting these programs.”
The debate was held in Cedar Rapids by KCRG-TV and the Gazette.
You can find a replay on their websites.