Miller-Meeks Sees Health Care Law Impacting Employment

Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) talks with a group of women at Smokey Row this past week.

Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) talks with a group of women at Smokey Row this past week.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The primary is fast approaching, and candidates for all offices are making themselves available for the voting public.

Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) is out campaigning for her chance to represent the Republican party against Congressman Dave Loebsack for the 2nd Congressional District in November.

This is Miller-Meeks’ second campaign stop in Oskaloosa at Smokey Row Coffee. There, she introduced herself to patrons, and discussed why she was running for office.

Miller-Meeks says that questions about health care is something she hears most often from voters. “People are very concerned, both seniors and younger people, about the health care bill.”

“I’ve had people tell me that they lost their full-time job. It was eliminated and now they are working two part-time jobs and they don’t have the benefits they had before,” said Miller-Meeks about the cost of the health care reform law.

If elected, Miller-Meeks would “take a look at those things in the health care bill that are making it tremendously difficult for small businesses”.

Miller-Meeks also spoke about job creation. “Especially in the southern parts of Iowa, people want to know about jobs and job creation.” She said that people are concerned about “increasing take home pay. I think all of us are being squeezed. Gasoline is up. Food prices are up. But yet wages, even though they are increasing and we’re doing better in Iowa than some states, it’s still squeezing the middle-class.”

“In southeast Iowa we have higher unemployment and lower average income,” said Miller-Meeks. The concern for job creation and “keeping our businesses there, allowing them to grow, and bringing in more business. So when a business owner tells you that the accurate predictions of their health care costs for their 200 employees was 500 thousand a year to 1.6 million a year, and that they have such a small profit margin that they would go out of business… That’s a concern.”

Miller-Meeks said that examining the law further and how it’s impacting jobs, businesses and the mandates “and the increasing costs of the premiums because they are telling people this is what you have to offer as a package”. Miller-Meeks added, “Those things increase costs to businesses and make it difficult for businesses to survive, to thrive and even to start.”

Posted by on May 12 2014. Filed under Local News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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