Rebecca Cooke believes her third attempt at winning a seat in Congress will be a success because of the failure of others: US Rep. Derrick Van Orden and President Donald Trump.
“We need more people in Congress that want to work across the aisle to actually get things done,” Cooke told a recent gathering in Eau Claire, “not to stir more chaos and division, which is all we see from Derrick Van Orden and this administration.”
Cooke stood in front of Sacred Heart Hospital, which has been closed since March 2024 along with St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls, when she made those remarks.
“Since then, we have not seen much from our congressional leadership to right the ship,” Cooke told a crowd of supporters.
Cooke finds plenty of discontent in her travels throughout the large 3rd Congressional District: tariffs, the Iran war, and inflation among others. But she said healthcare is at or near the top of a lot of people’s lists of concerns, especially the $1 trillion in healthcare cuts from the Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“We watched as our congressman was the deciding vote to gut Medicaid and make it more difficult for rural hospitals to stay open,” Cooke said. “This administration and this Republican-led Congress failed to expand the ACA (Affordable Care Act) premium tax credits, which jacked up people’s monthly premiums, some up to $1,800 per month.”
Cooke promised prompt action on healthcare affordability if her party takes over control of the House of Representatives, starting with the first House Resolution to be offered.
“If Democrats win back the house,” she said, “HR 1 has to be focused on healthcare, expanding the ACA premium tax credit for three years, which would stop the hemorrhaging that a lot of people are feeling across west central Wisconsin. Second: passing a public option. Folks who like private insurance, they can keep it, but creating a public option would help more folks be insured at a lower rate. And finally, I want to expand Medicare to cover vision, dental, and hearing.”
Buyer’s remorse on Van Orden, Trump
In a follow-up interview, Cooke told UpNorthNews reporter Salina Heller that what she sees in the political environment here echoes feelings around the country.
“I think what’s frustrating for a lot of folks, and especially for people that voted for this administration is Trump campaigned on no more foreign ‘forever wars’ and an America First agenda,” Cooke said. “And this is exactly the opposite of what farmers and what a lot of people in rural communities thought that they were voting for. So, it’s been a real struggle.”
The struggle is made worse by price pressures brought about by the Iran War and retaliatory tariffs on Trump’s trade wars.
“There’s a lot of farmers that are just worried about how they’re going to make it through the end of the year and thinking about next year,” Cooke said. “Many people prepaid for their diesel or prepaid for their fertilizer [this year, but] a lot of folks are looking at ‘how am I going to make this work next year?’”
Van Orden countered in his debate with Cooke that he had helped rural healthcare in Wisconsin through the creation of a new program.
“We got a $50 billion Rural Health Care Infrastructure Revitalization Fund,” Van Orden said. “That’s the largest investment in rural healthcare in the history of our country [with] $203 million a year for five years coming to the state for rural health.”
But critics note the $50 billion pales in comparison to the $1 trillion in cuts, most of them delayed so they wouldn’t be felt until after the November midterm elections.
On the war in Iran, Van Orden, a retired US Navy Seal who describes himself as having “spent my entire adult life either training for war, training others for war or at war myself,” went on to say he doesn’t want to be in conflict with Iran but it’s being done for future generations.
“Is it making it exponentially harder for Republicans to hold the House and the Senate? Yes, it is,” Van Orden said, “but we have to think about our children and grandchildren. We’ve been fighting the war that the radical Muslim mullahs declared on us for 50 years and I don’t want my grandchildren fighting the same war that I did.”
“We need stability right now,” said Cooke. “And we need people that are willing to right the ship and set us on a good path forward.”
On Nov. 3, voters will decide whether to keep following a path being hacked out by Van Orden and Trump or a new direction with Cooke and a Democratic-controlled Congress.
