Health care

Where do candidates stand on the Affordable Care Act? How involved should government be in health care?

Mike Braun, Republican

"Ten years ago, when I had a raucous meeting with my current insurance providers, I said 'I'm fed up with you telling me I'm lucky it's only going up 5 to 10 percent.' When I took them on, I said ‘I wanted to make sure you cover pre-existing conditions and no cap on coverage.' And that's the difference between somebody like me that's trying to actually lower costs and provide good coverage and somebody like the senator who signed on to Obamacare without having the foresight that it was doomed to fail."

Lucy Brenton, Libertarian

"There is no role in government for health care, in my mind. When government enters a market, it disrupts it. It's an unseen hand that moves prices up. When you take people out of the position of actually paying for their own health care, they don't know how much it costs. I'll use myself as an example. When I worked for the phone company, I had amazing insurance. I had birth, baby number seven, that was over $15,000. And I literally did not have even an aspirin; there was no OB-GYN there, it was a midwife-assisted birth. But yet with my baby number nine, born at home, that baby was $4,000. That's it — it's an $11,000 cost differential because there's no competition and you are insulated from the cost by the insurance companies. Do you want to know why your premiums are so high? That's it; it's that $1,000 aspirin."

Joe Donnelly, Democrat incumbent

"Well, I think what you need to do is ask any family in our state who has someone with a pre-existing condition. But here's the interesting thing with this. Mike Braun has said he's for pre-existing conditions. But he supports a lawsuit that would take it away if the lawsuit is successful. He supported a Senate bill that would've taken away coverage for pre-existing conditions. And so he says one thing but his actions show something completely different."