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August 15, 2002-About 50 people attended Rep. Gephardt and Rep. Leonard
Boswell's forum on Social Security at the Knoxville Senior Center.
Boswell sought to reassure the seniors in the audience. "If you're
retired now or near retired, please don't worry," he said. Boswell
was first elected to Congress in 1996; he noted in his remarks that he
and 13 other members of the 1996 class had gotten together to learn what
they could about Social Security. More recently, Boswell has made
Medicare reimbursement rates a signature issue; despite its high percentage
of elderly population, Iowa is 50th in the country in Medicare reimbursements.
Boswell faces a substantially reconfigured district in 2002; the old
3rd encompassed 27 counties in the southern and eastern part of the state
and included several counties wrapping around Polk County (Des Moines),
while the new third has 12 counties including Polk County. The Republican
candidate is lawyer Stan Thompson. (A representative from the Thompson
campaign was on hand at this event and discretely handed out a press release
headlined "Boswell Can't Deliver Gephardt's Vote for Iowa" about Gephardt's
vote against an amendment offered by Jim Nussle). |
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