About a dozen Washington and Daviess County residents spent some one-on-one time with Eighth District Congressman Larry Bucshon Friday afternoon. Bucshon called it “holding office hours” with his constituents in Washington. The event at the Washington Mayor’s Office and City Council Chambers was an extension of a similar program Bucshon has run in the more populous counties.
“Since I’ve been in office, I’ve been doing office hours around the district, mostly in Evansville and Terre Haute, but we’ve expanded that to our other counties,” said Bucshon. “I like hearing directly from the people about what is going on in their world.”
One of the most often mentioned issues by folks in southwestern Indiana appears to be the financial challenges created by the rising costs of health care and health insurance.
“One of the top issues is health care costs,” said Bucshon. “That’s kind of my area. You hear people talking about the fact health care costs are really high. Their deductibles are up. Their premiums are up.”
Republican members of congress say the increase in health care is a result of Obamacare. Democrats counter the rise is the result of Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. With Democrats now in control of the House and Republicans running the Senate it does not appear any big fix is possible.
“I think we will do some things around the edges,” said Bucshon. “Big picture, I don’t think we will see anything big and dramatic over the next two years. The parties are just too far apart on the big picture stuff.”
Some of the smaller items though could still have an impact on consumers. “I do think on things like drug prices and getting deductibles down and those types of things we are going to make some progress. Big picture, we are going to see a debate on a one-size-fits-all, single-payer system that’s being offered by some of the Democrats. On our side, we don’t agree with that. You’ll see that as a presidential issue.”
Another presidential issue that has generated a lot of discussion with Bucshon during his office hour stops has been trade and farming.
“I heard from some farmers about the tariffs and the trade deals we’re trying to get resolved,” said Bucshon. “I’m optimistic about solving that.”
He points out there has been movement on both the North American trade front and the China dispute. Bucshon believes there is potential for settling those problems yet this year.
“We need to get that resolved,” he said. “We have the USMCA, the NAFTA replacement. We need to get that one voted on in the house and the senate. I’m hopeful that will happen in the next few months. The U.S. Trade Representative says they are very close with the Chinese. He’s optimistic that in the next couple of months they will be able to finalize a deal there. That’s what we really need. We need the markets to open back up, get rid of these tariffs so our farmers can thrive.”
Bucshon says he expects the deal with China to be done before the harvest in the fall.