Brian Bengs

“There are places in this state where you might have a 2 or more hour drive to the nearest hospital if you need anything, and when we have problems with cutting funding for like Medicaid, rural areas tend to not have super wealthy individuals. Medicaid is a big source of funding for rural hospitals. When you cut Medicaid, then you cut funding for rural hospitals.”

“My big focus from the start has been on the corruption of our government, big money controlling our politics. And so when I go out and I talk to people and I ask them, do you think our government is functioning as the founders intended, as the Constitution is designed? And typically, they're going to chuckle and then they say no. And then I'm able to engage them with the conversation: Do you think big money is controlling our elected officials in the sense that they're doing what people who write them large checks want more so than us lowly voters? And basically, to a person of the thousands of people I've talked to — left, right, in the middle — everybody agrees that's a problem.”