For state Sen. Jesse Green, one fact sums up the positive situation Iowa is now in.

“We have a net migration into the state of Iowa,” the Republican from Boone said Friday morning.

Green was one of three state lawmakers who spoke during a forum hosted by the local affiliate of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisers at the Best Western Starlite Village Inn & Suites..

State Sen. Tim Kraayenbrink and state Rep. Ann Meyer, both Fort Dodge Republicans, also took part in the forum. They were joined by Jim Oberhelman, representing U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull; and Kolby DeWitt, representing U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, also a Republican.

According to Green, about 2,500 people moved into Iowa from other states recently. He acknowledged he does not know exactly why those people moved to Iowa, but suggested that the state’s low taxes and its version of school choice may have played a role.

Kraayenbrink said the state’s income tax rate will be 3.8 percent on Jan. 1. He said the income tax rate has been steadily reduced over the last few years from its previous level of 8.9 percent.

He said the state has “cut taxes in half for the majority of people in this room.”

At the same time the income tax rate went down, the state government’s budget surplus grew to about $6 billion, he said.

“It was good planning, conservative budgeting that did that,” he said.

Green said cutting taxes is the “only responsible thing government can do during high inflationary times.”

Kraayenbrink said he is not in a hurry to implement any more income tax cuts. He said the legislature needs to “take a little breather here” to see the impact of the cuts that have been made.

Meyer is the chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee and has worked to improve access to care, especially mental health care, during her six years in the legislature.

“We’ve gotten a lot done in the last few years,” she said.

One example she cited was the establishment of a child intensive psychiatric care rate within Medicaid to encourage the creation of specialty in-patient mental health care for kids.

She said Medicaid postpartum care has been extended from 30 days to one year.

Meyer said she remains committed to passing a bill that would require people to use electronic devices in hands-free mode while driving. That has been a priority for her as long as she has been in office, but she has never been able to get a bill to the floor of the House for a vote. She said she has some new strategies to get that accomplished next year. She said the Senate passed a version of her bill this year.

Brenda Eckard, co-owner and chief executive officer of KHI Solutions in Fort Dodge, informed the lawmakers and congressional staffers of an issue her company and others now face in serving senior citizens.

She said the federal Inflation Reduction Act implemented a $2,000 cap on what senior citizens on Medicare will pay for prescription drugs in 2025. That, she said, prompted the insurance companies to make a lot of changes. In response the federal government introduced a premium stabilization program, which most of the insurance companies signed up for. Eckard estimated that the premium stabilization plan will cost taxpayers $5 billion.

She said the result of all of this is a lot of confusion, which in a worst case scenario, will result in some seniors ending up without coverage for the prescriptions they need.

DeWitt and Oberhelman said they would bring this to the attention of congressional staffers in Washington who specialize in Medicare policy.