Jack Hatch is a former state senator who chaired the Iowa Senate Health and Human Services Committee and was the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor.

I was one of the legislative authors of expanding health care through the expansion of Medicaid in 2013. At least two members of Iowa’s current U.S. House delegation should know that the expansion was designed to help children and adults who previously did not qualify for Medicaid. Randy Feenstra, who now represents Iowa’s fourth Congressional district, was a state senator at the time. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who represents the first Congressional district, was then the director of the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Iowa became the only state with a Republican governor that enacted Medicaid expansion in 2013. The Iowa Health and Wellness Plan would eventually extend health insurance coverage to nearly 200,000 residents of our state.

Representatives Feenstra, Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson (IA-02), and Zach Nunn (IA-03) should understand who benefited when Iowa expanded Medicaid. They also must know who’s going to be left off after all four of them voted for President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” It’s not undocumented immigrants (because they have never been eligible for Medicaid).

They must know that “waste, fraud, and abuse” does not equal the savings they are expecting, and must know that rural hospitals will close and nursing homes will vanish. They must know that Iowans will die.

They’re doing this with their eyes wide open, knowing that tens of thousands of adult Iowans and tens of thousands of Iowa children will find it more difficult to live in our state, more difficult to achieve educational opportunities, and more difficult to care for our elderly.

This great country has promised all its citizens “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” but now, for the first time, we have taken those rights away from citizens. Those politicians voted for this bill, knowing that the trade-off was a promise of economic growth from an administration more interested in rewarding people already benefiting from the American economic dream.

Iowa’s Congressional delegation voted to protect the people who have been the engineers of economic growth, but not to protect the people employed by them. The shift in economic disparity is moving “faster than a speeding bullet.”  States and local government services will be significantly reduced, and local taxes will now accelerate. This is already happening with our property taxes, water fees, and law enforcement costs.  

Too many of the adults who will be taken off Medicaid or will lose their Social Security benefits will be more likely to die earlier, in more discomfort and alone.

Our Congressional delegation owes us an explanation—and not in front of orchestrated audiences. They need to come to the open town hall meetings where people can listen to their explanation. If they are so enthusiastic about their vote, then convince us.

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Top photo was originally published on Lee Zeldin’s X/Twitter feed.