8th Congressional rivals Bean and Davis disagree on best path forward for health care

The candidates vying for the 8th Congressional District seat envision different solutions to providing effective health care for Americans.

Melissa Bean, a Barrington Democrat who served three terms in the U.S. House from 2005 to 2011, is running against Jennifer Davis, a Republican business owner from Huntley, in the Nov. 3 election.

The winner will succeed U.S. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who chose not to run for reelection and instead made an unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat this year. The 8th District includes portions of Cook, DuPage and Kane counties.

Bean says health care solutions in the Affordable Care Act, which she supported while in Congress, have been endangered during President Donald Trump’s second term.

“I was proud to work with President Obama to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010,” Bean wrote in a Daily Herald questionnaire. “Before the ACA, young adults couldn’t stay on their parents’ plans, millions were denied or dropped for preexisting conditions and many were priced out of coverage.”

But Davis believes giving consumers more options for private health insurance is a better solution than more government.

“Health care in America is too expensive, too complicated, and too captured by the same Washington habit: pass something, declare victory, then leave families with the premiums and surprises,” Davis wrote in her questionnaire. “The ACA locked in a lot of that complexity.”

Bean said medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., even among those with health insurance. She believes the ACA sought to change this by expanding benefits, strengthening consumer protections, improving preventive care and slowing cost growth.

But she now sees the progress at risk.

“The erosion of ACA tax credits by the Trump Administration and this Republican majority has made coverage unaffordable for families and increased costs systemwide,” Bean said. “We must strengthen — not weaken — the ACA by protecting tax credits, maintaining protections for preexisting conditions, encouraging competition to control costs and investing in preventive and primary care.”

Bean said she will continue fighting for the ACA because she believes it protects the health and dignity of all Americans.

However, Davis said the ACA and so-called Medicare for All are not real solutions. Both come from a government mindset that avoids the sustained attention needed to lower costs for people, she added.

“I rate the system as failing working families,” Davis said. “Congress should expand choice: buy across state lines, grow HSAs, demand price transparency, cut regulations that pad bills and protect people with preexisting conditions without turning the market into a government program. Fix what is broken. Do not replace it with a bigger monopoly.”

Davis vowed to work with anyone who measures success by whether Illinois families can afford their health care.

“Deliver results,” she added. “That is the job.”

epeterson@dailyherald.com