News · Press Release

READ & WATCH: While Zach Nunn Says It’s a “Myth” His Medicaid Cuts Will Close Rural Hospitals, Sarah Trone Garriott Fights for Iowans’ Health Care

Last year, Zach Nunn said it was a “myth” that the Medicaid cuts he voted for would force rural hospitals and health care clinics to close their doors.

While Zach Nunn’s votes cause health care clinics across IA-03 to close, Sarah Trone Garriott fights for Iowans. Sarah held a roundtable to hear from Ottumwa physicians, nurse practitioners, and residents about what the closure of the MercyOne Ottumwa clinic means for them. 

ABOVE THE FOLD IN THE OTTUMWA COURIER
Ottumwans highlighted how the closed clinics mean not just loss of care, but loss of jobs for more than 50 people in the community. Julie, an Ottumwa resident who received primary care at the Mercy clinic, detailed how “she may need to travel elsewhere for primary care” and is “left without a provider.”

A physician who practiced for more than four decades at the MercyOne Ottumwa clinic said explicitly, “Zach Nunn owns this. He needs to pay a price for accountability, and the best thing you [Sarah] can do is be elected to replace [Nunn].”

Read and watch more:

Ottumwa Courier: Local officials discuss rural health care concerns

  • Behind the uncertainty in Julie Lawrence’s voice there was hope. Yet, solving the region’s rural health crisis, particularly in the wake of the closure of the local MercyOne Ottumwa Clinic in January, will be a multi-pronged process.
  • Lawrence was one of the guests at a roundtable with 3rd District congressional candidate Sarah Trone Garriott at Hotel Ottumwa Saturday, where ideas were discussed and frustrations aired regarding the backsliding of rural health care in the region.
  • “In the last five years I’ve had three different providers and I thought my last one was who I was going to have for the rest of my life,” said the 68-year-old Lawrence. “…Right now, I don’t have a provider.”
  • Most patients of MercyOne will have to seek care in Centerville, 40 miles away, if they want to continue with the provider. But the closure is more a symptom of the problem caused by the One Big Beautiful Bill, which drastically cut Medicaid, which also keeps rural hospitals and clinics open.
  • …Trone Garriott sympathized with the plight of Lawrence and others who have lost their doctors as a result of closures.
  • “These cuts are going to make it harder for them to access care, but also harder for clinics and hospitals to provide care,” she said. “Zach Nunn said it was a myth that Medicaid cuts would close rural hospitals, but it’s already happening.”
  • Former Ottumwa mayor Rick Johnson, who was also the CEO of River Hills Community Health Center, said 65% of Ottumwa residents are on either Medicare or Medicaid, but with the low rate of reimbursement, it is difficult to lure doctors to the region. He also said approximately 20 critical-access hospitals in the southern part of the state are on the verge of bankruptcy.
  • Peter Reiter, a retired doctor, became emotional when Trone Garriott asked him why he got into medicine in the 1970s.
  • “I wanted to help people live longer, relieve their pain and make their dying easier. I got to do that, and there are people out there that want to do the same thing. There are too many impediments. I can’t ever say this stuff without getting emotional.”
  • Kerri Rupe, an Ottumwa resident and certified family nurse practitioner at the University of Iowa, said the state has one of the best medical programs in the country, but can’t get doctors to stay.
  • Reiter said the closure of the MercyOne clinic, as well as the Pella Regional Medical Clinic, is “the canary in the coal mine.”
  • “We’re just the first,” he said. “People will not be able to get care anywhere. Hospitals will not be able to provide care because they’ll be closed. This was voted for by every member of our Iowa delegation, and Zach Nunn owns this. He needs to pay a price for accountability, and the best thing you can do is be elected to replace it.”
  • Trone Garriott believed “shoring up the Affordable Care Act” is critical, as well as protecting Medicaid and Medicare.
  • “I want folks to have real choices. If they want to seek out a private insurance option that’s there for them … but there [also has to be] a public option for folks and that you can get those guaranteed services to keep you health and safe,” she said. “We need to find a way to make sure everybody has coverage.
  • “Health care is a top issue everywhere. We all have loved ones who’ve needed health care, and we’ve all had our own experiences. This is a deeply personal thing.”
Des Moines Register: Sarah Trone Garriott says she backs public health option in Ottumwa visit

  • Health care has been a key issue in Democratic challengers’ campaigns to unseat Republican incumbents in the 2026 midterm elections, including in the 3rd District race.
  • Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation, including Nunn, voted for the GOP budget reconciliation law.
  • Democrats have said the measure will close hospitals, threaten the health system and reduce health care access.
  • Julie Lawrence, an Ottumwa resident who previously received care at the now-shuttered MercyOne clinic, is still puzzling through her next steps.
  • She said she may need to travel elsewhere for primary care. For now, she is left without a provider.
  • “It’s really scary not knowing what’s going to happen,” Lawrence said.
  • After President Donald Trump signed the bill into law July 4, the head of MercyOne’s parent company, Trinity Health, said the Medicaid cuts would further strain a health system burdened by low Medicaid reimbursement rates and would more than double the loss to exceed $1 billion annually.
  • “Employers already shoulder higher premiums to offset underpayments from Medicaid and Medicare, and they won’t accept further cost shifts,” wrote Trinity Health president and CEO Mike Slubowski. “Hospitals, often the largest employers in small and mid-sized towns, may be forced to reduce services, cut jobs or close entirely.”
  • Dr. Peter Reiter, a former physician at MercyOne Ottumwa who practiced medicine in the city for 40 years, said Medicaid cuts could push hospitals to a point where places like Ottumwa are “the canary in the coal mine.”
  • “We’re just the first,” Reiter said. “There are going to be many other health care access points in the state of Iowa and around the country that will close. People will not be able to get care anywhere. People will not be able to take care of their babies. People will not be able to take their medication and people will die prematurely.”
  • Democrats have targeted Nunn over remarks he made in an interview with WHO13 in July 2025.
  • “I think that the myth here is that rural hospitals are going to close down. That’s not the case,” he had said.
  • Trone Garriott said rural providers were already struggling with recruiting health care providers and staying open.
  • Pella Regional Medical Clinic reduced its family practice operations in January because of provider recruitment and retention woes. And MercyOne’s family medicine clinic in Traer closed in December.
  • “Zach Nunn, our congressperson, said it was a myth that the Medicaid cuts would close rural hospitals, but it’s already happening,” Trone Garriott said.
  • Former Ottumwa Mayor Rick Johnson, who was the CEO of the River Hills Community Health Center, said the loss of jobs with the clinic closures in Ottumwa and Pella would have a fiscal toll.
  • “It has a real domino effect on the community,” he said.
Iowa Starting Line: Ottumwa residents say ‘the system will crash’ after Medicaid cuts 

  • Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn told WHO13 in July 2025 that rural hospital closures were a “myth.”
  • “I think that the myth here is that rural hospitals are going to close down. That’s not the case,” he said.
  • Seven months later, the MercyOne family medicine clinic in Ottumwa closed. It joined MercyOne’s clinic in Traer, which closed in December, and Pella Regional Medical Clinic, which reduced its family practice operations in January—all of it before the Medicaid cuts have even fully taken effect.
  • Dr. Peter Reiter practiced medicine in Ottumwa for 40 years. He was there when the city had 45 physicians. Now, he said, the town has two board-certified family practice doctors.
  • “Zach Nunn owns this,” Reiter said. “This is harming Iowans. This is harming Ottumwans.”
  • Mike Slubowski, the CEO of Trinity Health, which owns the MercyOne system of hospitals and clinics, warned after President Donald Trump signed the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act on July 4 that the Medicaid cuts would more than double the company’s annual losses to exceed $1 billion.
  • The closure didn’t just cost Ottumwa a clinic. It cost the community roughly 40 jobs at MercyOne, plus another 12 jobs at Pella Regional’s Ottumwa location. Rick Johnson, former mayor of Ottumwa, who also served as CEO of River Hills Community Health Center, said the economic ripple effects are already being felt.
  • For patients, the scramble is deeply personal. Julie Lawrence had been a patient at MercyOne Ottumwa and had finally found a provider she trusted.
  • She was told her records might go to Centerville—less than an hour away on a two-lane highway she doesn’t want to drive on in the winter—or possibly to Des Moines. She isn’t sure.
  • Former Nunn staffer at House GOP campaign arm responds, deletes response
  • “Sarah Trone Garriot’s round table is just 4 hand-picked Democrats echoing her scripted liberal talking points,” wrote the NRCC’s Emily Tuttle-Millard. “Real Iowans deserve actual town halls—not staged echo chambers.”
  • The tweet was deleted shortly after it was posted.
  • Nunn has not appeared at community meetings on the clinic closure. Attendees at the roundtable on Saturday said repeated attempts to get him to show up have gone unanswered. Nunn has said he wants to avoid what he calls “taxpayer-funded protest events,” and has steered clear of public town halls.
  • “We’ve tried to talk to him numerous times,” Lawrence said. “A group of us goes down and he’s never once showed up.”
  • “If he would ever show up and listen to his constituents, he would know that this is very much the reality that our neighbors are facing in the third district,” Trone Garriott said.
“Democratic congressional candidate Sarah Trone Garriott held a roundtable in Ottumwa where local health care professionals and patients discussed the closure of MercyOne’s Ottumwa clinic and how the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” led to it.”

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