Chenoweth, Williams Clash Over Medicare
Republican U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth on Sunday accused her Democratic challenger and his organized labor supporters of lying about her record on Medicare and other issues, claiming unions are trying to buy control of Congress by spending cash against her.
“My opponent is benefiting from nearly $1 million worth of outside advertising using an issue that is a total lie, saying over and over and over again, ‘Republicans voted to cut Medicare,”’ Chenoweth declared during the hourlong campaign debate broadcast by Idaho Public Television.
During the debate sponsored by the Idaho Press Club and the League of Women Voters, Chenoweth repeatedly said that the Republican congressional majority supported increasing Medicare spending by about 6 percent a year over the seven years.
But Democrat Dan Williams, the one-time long shot who is now casting uncertainty on Chenoweth’s re-election plans, maintained that while the GOP would increase overall annual support for the program it would not be enough, according to the American Association of Retired Persons and others, to keep up with rising medical costs and the growing number of beneficiaries.
“That would have meant higher deductibles, higher copayments, higher premiums - as much as $1,200 a year by the end of seven years,” the Boise attorney said. “Whether you call it a cut or you call it a decrease in the growth of the program, benefits will go down.”
The conservative freshman lawmaker, however, repeated her claim that Williams and organized labor were distorting her positions and lying to voters.
“The fact is that we have increased Medicare at twice the rate of inflation, nearly twice the rate of inflation, as the private health care delivery systems,” Chenoweth shot back. “But the bottom line of this is this is a flat out lie that the national labor unions are using to buy back a Congress, congressman by congressman.”
But in Boise last year, St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center raised its patient rates 5 percent and St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center raised its patient rates 6 percent - about the equivalent of the annual Medicare support increase in the GOP plan Chenoweth backed.
Citing his disagreement with labor’s position against a capital gains tax cut and preservation of the state option for right-towork laws, Williams flatly denied that the unions were buying his vote with their financial support.
“The reason why working men and women ask them from Idaho to contribute to my campaign, Mrs. Chenoweth, is that you have a zero rating on their score card on student loans, on pension security, on Medicare, on a whole host of other issues that are critical to working families in this state including the federal minimum wage,” he said. But after accusing her opponent of being a pawn of organized labor, Chenoweth seemed to dance around a question about what is expected in return for the support of business and industry, which have contributed more than twice the cash to her as labor has to Williams.
On another issue, Chenoweth said she’d support transferring federal lands to the states, because she believes Idaho can log forests better than the U.S. Forest Service.
“I do believe that there are large sectors of our Idaho forests that are diseased and unhealthy,” she said. “It’s shown that the state can operate and log out the forests and harvest them with the net result of money for the state and healthier forests.”
Williams criticized that idea and said the state couldn’t afford to manage the vast federal lands in Idaho. “Those lands would go on the auction block,” he said.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Associated Press Staff writer Betsy Russell contributed to this report.