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KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- We are getting down to the wire with the election just four days away.

And, here in the Heartland the race for District 3 State Representative is heating up.

So, KTVO sat down with both candidates.

State representatives cannot repeal the Affordable Care Act, only the U.S. Senate can, which is a hot button issue on both sides of the aisle.

So we asked both state representative candidates about health care.

Question 1: What would you do if nominated to help District 3 with health care?

Democrat Rebecca McClanahan’s view on: Health care

“I think in 2012 Missouri has been given an extraordinary opportunity to do what’s right for Missourians in terms of health care, and perhaps, cover hundreds of thousands of Missourians with health care while bringing Missouri tax dollars home where they belong. So, I believe the way that would be done would be to expand eligibility for Medicaid.
Now I know there are concerns out there that there are people (who) are already accessing Medicaid (who) don’t deserve it, and I have those conversations with people, but just in terms of covering those who really need health care and ways of saving costs in the system, we could expand Medicaid in the state of Missouri.”

Republican Nate Walker’s view on: Health Care

“Well, I think right now we have a system that anybody can get health care through the private system. And some day, maybe, we need to come up with a good health care program that might be like the ObamaCare program. But right now, it's a bad program because the taxes and the cost of it (don’t) measure out for the benefits. I think if we can sit down bipartisanly to come up with a plan that could work, that would be great.”

Question 2: If elected, what would be your main priority?

McClanahan:

“I have three priorities that are essentially equal: jobs and the economy, public education and health care. And so, those three I think blend beautifully because when you do something positive for jobs, you impact the other two areas. When you do something good for education, you impact the other two areas. The top employers here in the Kirksville area, the Adair County area, are health care and public education. And then we add on private education and ATSU and that is really the things we do best in the Kirksville area.”
　
Walker:

“Throughout this campaign I’ve talked about jobs and the economy. And, if we can get more jobs and the economy working better then that provides more income through the taxes people pay when they have a job. And you know unemployment is way too high. Eight percent or plus and we just have to work to get the unemployment numbers down. (We have to) provide good jobs in north Missouri, so that we can keep our good resources here (and) the good people here to work. But, just getting the economy going, getting jobs for our people is the most important thing right now because if you have jobs, then everything else kind of falls in place in a good way.”

You can view both candidates full interview HERE.