As a doctor, I’m fighting in Congress to lower health costs | Opinion
Every time I go to Washington, I go with the same fight: standing up to the big insurance corporations and drug middlemen that profit while Iowa families struggle to afford care
Mariannette Miller-Meeks
Guest columnist
Aug. 22, 2026, 5:56 p.m. CT
- Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, represents Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. She is a physician, Army veteran, and former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health.
I ran for Congress because as a doctor I saw that Washington and big insurance made life harder for the very people I was trying to heal. That fight started with H.R. 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, capping insulin costs at $35 a month, one of my first and most important votes. I was one of only 12 Republicans to cross party lines and vote for it. It’s on the record, full stop
An ad from 314 Action, a group backed by the very big insurance groups I am fighting to lower your premiums and prescription drug costs, centers on a vote against the Inflation Reduction Act, which included an insulin cap that I supported. But the $740 billion bill also included $80 billion in taxpayer dollars to expand the IRS and a wave of new spending and tax increases at a time when inflation had hit a 40-year high. And here’s what 314 Action won’t tell you: that I voted to cap insulin at $35 and the IRA did not broadly lower prescription drug prices for the average American.
These intentionally deceptive ads fail to mention that inconvenient fact, the same way they forget to mention what happened in December, when the House passed my bill that lowers premiums, expands access to care, and brings real transparency to health care pricing. It cuts premiums by more than 11% and saves taxpayers $30 billion. Every single Democrat in the House voted against it, and we heard the same kind of false attacks then, too
While I was working to bring your costs down, the other side was fighting to keep pouring your tax dollars into enhanced COVID-era subsidies that flow straight to big insurance companies without ever lowering the actual premiums those companies charge. That’s not a solution. That’s a taxpayer-funded cover-up for prices that keep climbing every year
I’ve been fighting the drug middlemen driving up what you pay at the pharmacy counter since my time in the Iowa Senate, and I’m leading that same fight in Congress today. I also helped deliver $209 million to keep rural hospitals open across Iowa, because no family should have to drive an hour for care their community used to provide
I meet Iowans in their small businesses. I walk their family farms. I sit down and listen. And every time I go to Washington, I go with the same fight: standing up to the big insurance corporations and drug middlemen that profit while Iowa families struggle to afford care. That fight ends when Iowans finally get the honest, affordable health care they deserve
Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, represents Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. She is a physician, Army veteran, and former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health
