Sami on the Issues
Healthcare
Healthcare is a critical issue for Sami and his family. Two members of his family have had cancer. Sami strongly believes private insurance companies should not profit off sick people in our community. At the state level, we must reverse the Republican Party’s disastrous privatization of Medicaid which has complicated care for countless working-class families in this state. So many Iowans did not have health insurance before the pandemic; this has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has thrown tens of thousands of Iowans off their employer-sponsored health plans.
Education
You used to be able to attend one of our excellent public schools, graduate, make a good living, and provide for yourself or your family. That’s no longer the case for so many working people in our state. Excellent public schools used to be the way out of the working class for so many in this state – for people like Sami’s dad. With our state coffers full, Republicans continue to starve our public schools and, dangerously, promote the interests of private schools over our public education system. It’s long past time we reinvest in our public schools and pay our teachers higher wages, so that we can bring talented teachers to our state and continue helping our children.
Workers’ Rights
A few years ago when Sami was working on a campaign, his union rep went to bat for him and fought to make sure his employer was respecting his rights. Republicans have intentionally gutted the rights of all workers across this state. The repeal of Chapter 20 public-sector bargaining in 2017 that gutted workers’ rights was a calculated attack on workers and working-class people in Iowa. Sami will fight every day to make sure that Iowa 1) ceases to be a right-to-work state 2) that we restore – and strengthen – our Chapter 20 collective bargaining rights for workers in this state and 3) that we ensure that policies like prevailing wages, project labor agreements, and many others are implemented in our state government.
