Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this post first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

Lately, you haven’t been able to turn on the TV without hearing how great Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks is.

The American Action Network, a special interest group with ties to the U.S. House Republican leadership, has been blanketing area TV stations and online outlets with ads that claim Miller-Meeks, the member of Congress for Iowa’s first district, “led the charge for high-quality, less expensive health care, especially for rural Iowans.” Then they say that we should “thank her for delivering for all of us.”

Less expensive health care?

In what world?

Health care is more expensive, not less. Just ask any Iowa family. Or any family anywhere.

Look at the evidence:

• Average premiums for employer-provided health insurance, which covers most Americans, soared to nearly $27,000 last year for a family plan. The average worker contributed $6,850 toward family coverage.
• Medicare Part B premiums rose by almost 10 percent, the largest increase in four years.
• Republicans in Congress refused to renew the Biden-era tax credits that lowered Affordable Care Act costs—meaning average premium payments were set to double, according to the health policy group KFF.

Meanwhile, the nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid that Miller-Meeks voted for is hitting states hard. In Iowa, state legislators faced with a Medicaid shortfall recently jacked up taxes on health insurance companies, who warned this could eventually cost Iowa families hundreds of dollars.

So, where is health care less expensive?

Do members of Congress have such good health insurance they’re this out of touch?

Miller-Meeks is in the midst of a tough re-election race, so House Republicans are pulling out all the stops to help get her across the finish line. Thus, the wall-to-wall ads making fantastical claims.

Aside from the ad, Miller-Meeks is now pushing the line she’s a fiscal conservative fighting fraud. But as I wrote a year ago when she tried to jump on the DOGE bandwagon, the true hawks calling for less spending and restraints on government growth apparently don’t think too much of her.

The National Taxpayers Union handed Miller-Meeks a 65 percent rating in 2023, which was below the average for House Republicans. A year later, Miller-Meeks’ rating actually fell—to 52 percent.

The Club for Growth, meanwhile, gave her a 50 in 2024. That’s down from the year before, too.

In other words, from a right-wing perspective, Miller-Meeks is going in the wrong direction.

Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising. On a number of occasions, Miller-Meeks has been accused of trying to play both sides of the fence.

In early 2025, she boasted about President Joe Biden signing legislation she promoted to create a new grant program under the Economic Development Administration to bolster U.S. supply chains.

Spending hawks have tried for years to eliminate the EDA, and after Trump was inaugurated, his administration tried to get rid of the agency. (He has not been successful due to congressional efforts to save the EDA.)

Nonetheless, the Congressional Research Service reported this month the Trump Administration hasn’t even published any guidance for the supply chain grant program. This, even though it became law 16 months ago.

What in the world have they been doing?

This is a high priority for business organizations in the Quad-Cities, and U.S. Representative Eric Sorensen, a Democrat who represents Illinois’ 17th District, is pushing to put $50 million into the program.

Miller-Meeks says domestic manufacturing is a priority, but it doesn’t show. She has supported Trump’s illegal tariffs, which have cost US import companies $168 billion. Some of those costs have landed on US consumers, too. Meanwhile, GOP tariffs hurt, rather than helped, American manufacturing.

Remember the Trump administration’s promise to sign 90 deals in 90 days? Not only have they fallen woefully short on that promise, but manufacturing payrolls are actually down, and GOP tariffs on steel and aluminum are hampering factory construction, according to Politico, which reports the industry’s hiring rate “is lower now than it was at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Add it all up:

• Miller-Meeks is faltering as a fiscal conservative, according to conservative groups.
• Her actions in Congress actually raised health care costs.
• She supported tariffs that are hurting US factory growth. Those tariffs also cost US families $1,000 apiece last year, according to the Tax Foundation. They’ll cost families another $600 this year.
• She also boasted about helping to author a supply chain grant program in an agency Trump tried to eliminate. Yet, she claims she is working side by side with the president, even as the administration has failed to publish any guidance for the program.

Somebody should create a TV ad laying out this record. It probably won’t help Miller-Meeks get re-elected, but it would be more honest.