| New reporting from KCRG spotlights Grace Calvert, an Iowa woman with glioblastoma who uses insurance through the Affordable Care Act and its enhanced premium tax credits.
Without ACA tax credits, Calvert’s premiums would double and “could be the difference between receiving treatment or not.”
Miller-Meeks’ response to Calvert’s public pleas for her to help? Attacking the Affordable Care Act Calvert relies on and callously refusing to speak with or even have an ounce of empathy for Calvert.
DCCC Spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Mariannette Miller-Meeks is so out-of-touch she can’t spare an ounce of empathy for an Iowan battling brain cancer who depends on ACA tax credits to afford her care. Miller-Meeks is so obsessed with cutting health care she’s gone completely mask-off.”
WATCH ON KCRG:
Grace Calvert: “I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t care if I die.”
Calvert: “You can’t tell me you work for us and then do something that is going to harm us or kill us.”
Calvert: “And I want [Iowa representatives] to sit down, not just with me, with all their constituents, and explain to us why it’s more important that they get this rammed through than it is for us to live.”
KCRG: “I got a response from Iowa representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks writing, ‘Obamacare was sold as a way to make health care more affordable, but for many Iowa families, premiums and deductibles have continued to rise every single year since it was enacted, all while coverage has narrowed.”’
- An Iowa woman with brain cancer is urging the state’s congressional delegation to extend health care subsidies that she says are critical to affording her treatment.
- Grace Calvert was diagnosed with Glioblastoma four months ago, a brain cancer with a median survival of 15 months. Doctors removed an egg-sized tumor and told her she likely had 22 months to live with treatment.
- “In my case if I don’t have insurance I will die, and I’ll die sooner rather than later,” Calvert said.
- Calvert uses insurance through the Affordable Care Act and qualifies for enhanced premium tax credits, which expire at the end of the year. When Republicans in Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this summer, they decided not to extend the credits.
- Using a benefits calculator from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy nonprofit, Calvert found her payments would more than double to more than $300 a month once the credits sunset.
- “They’re saying you don’t need these advanced subsidies, why should you need that? Well I do need it because I have cancer and I’m probably going to die of it. They gave me 22 months,” Calvert said.
- She said the enhanced credits could be the difference between receiving treatment or not.
- “Yeah if we didn’t have this good insurance that we could afford, I don’t think I’d even be able to get treatment,” Calvert said.
- Calvert blames the credits expiring on the Big Beautiful Bill, which Iowa’s Republican representatives and senators all supported. She said she has tried to speak with some of Iowa’s representatives and senators but hasn’t had success.
- “I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t care if I die,” Calvert said. “You can’t tell me you work for us and then do something that is going to harm us or kill us.”
- Miller-Meeks said, “Obamacare was sold as a way to make health care more affordable, but for many Iowa families, premiums and deductibles have continued to rise every single year since it was enacted, all while coverage has narrowed.”
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