washingtonians that i know and love so much for the ability to continue to fight for us. i went to washington not to argue with my colleagues or get on to cable tv at night, but get things done. we passed three major bills. the inflation reduction act, which helped to put a cap on prescription drug prices for out of pocket for seniors with insulin at $35, it got us a negotiated rate that is helping us save money, like when you buy at costco and you get a discount. we deserve to get that discount in the medicare budget. we passed an infrastructure bill that helped us build the west seattle bridge and is getting light rail to show miss county and has done so many other things. we also passed the chips in science act, bringing the supply chain home, increasing jobs here in the state of washington, driving down costs. that is so important. i want to continue that work, we

have created so many jobs. we have seen them in the northwest economy. what we need now is trained, skilled people for the jobs of tomorrow that are here today. i want to fight for the apprenticeships, increased skilled wages and lower costs. ms. laven: thank you. dr. garcia, why do you believe you are the best candidate to represent our state? 5 good afternoon, i'm here to represent the people of washington. i want to thank the league of women voters and kiro7 for putting this together. i want to thank senator cantwell for being here and recognize 24 years representing the u.s., public service is not easy. as i say that, i want to thank my wife for her support. without her, i wouldn't be here today. mainly, i want to thank you, the viewers, who care enough to view the debate and care about our future.

[speaking another language] i hope that everybody watching this debate will see a contrast and a choice, not from a career politician with polished answers , but from an immigrant who fought hard for the american dream and was lucky enough to become a doctor, a medical leader, a professor, a dean, medical director, a business owner, but more importantly a father and a husband and a scientist. as such i will bring science into politics and according to results come out with solutions that are effective. ms. laven: thank you to you both for that opening question and now we are turning to the cost-of-living. washingtonians are struggling with the rising cost-of-living. the basic necessities, including

food, housing, and gas. inflation in washington state has consistently outpaced the national average. grocery prices are up by 7% in the last two years. here's the question -- what specific measures would you support to address inflation? dr. garcia? 5 we are in a bad -- dr. garcia: we are in a bad situation. numerous families are now going to food banks to get field -- to get food because they cannot afford it. they put groceries on credit cards. i have four children that put gas in their car every month, and eventually they call me to see if i can help them out. we need true answers. this inflation has been a result of largely government spending. i think that we need to cut our government spending and i think that we need to audit our federal government and see what programs are effective and what programs are ineffective. those ineffective programs turn

into money that we can be back to our communities. so that we can have more money. if we have more money in our pockets, we spend more in our communities and then growth happens. senator cantwell talked about the inflation reduction act, but unfortunately that has proven to not lower inflation. it has in fact raised it. academics all over the country said that this wouldn't be good and they continue to say that the results of the inflation reduction act, especially for the state of washington, we have been the piggy bank for the rest of the country. that means that we have put more taxes into its then we have rewarded from that ira. so, better solutions need to happen and we deserve better. ms. laven: thank you. senator cantwell, what specific measures would you support to address inflation? ms. laven: thank you. -- sen. cantwell: thank you.

we had a global pandemic in the situation in ukraine that affected all sorts of prices. first and foremost, to get through the pandemic, as i said earlier, bring the supply back to the united states to lower costs. right now we have gone from 9% inflation to 2.5% today, but it is still not enough. we need to see lower prices. when a kroger executive says that he knows that he raised grocery prices above the rate of inflation, that is just not right. so, i am opposing the kroger merger, because the kroger albertson merger will give less choice and increase costs. secondly, i believe in building more affordable housing. for every 2000 units that get built in the city, it lowers the annual rent by about $2000 for those individuals. building more supply will help us, because housing is still one of the stingy us aspects.

i also believe in giving more people access to lower prescription drug costs. the notion that we now have a cap on insulin at $35 for seniors is something that everyone on insulin deserves to have. certainly, being able to negotiate on drug prices and these middlemen who are taking money out of our pharmacies like the kelley raw pharmacy here that had to close because of the pdm clawbacks, we need to stop that and i have a bill in the senate to do so. ms. laven: moving on to public safety now, this remains a top concern for washingtonians. violent crime in our state decreased by four point 8% from 2022 to 2023, but it remains more than 23% higher than in 2019, before pandemic, outpacing the national average. the drug prices, particularly fentanyl, contribute significantly to crime. what would you do as senator to address public safety. senator cantwell?

sen. cantwell: fentanyl is a scourge on society and we did pass a law to make it an emergency nationally, giving us more resources here in seattle to fight this pandemic. and we are also, this crisis that we have, we also are helping with law enforcement with what they have requested, new technologies to detect fentanyl vapors so that it can be detected sooner. i believe in putting more community police into our communities. the notion that we put 100 36,000 policemen from the federal level to help places like seattle or to help tacoma or spokane is a critical part of how things, how the local law enforcement is in our communities. it's important, community policing is about knowing your community and helping to stop the crime. in bellevue, where there have been a full fleet of officers and community programs, where

they have had more success in fighting this, we should learn more from that on what the mayor of bellevue has done. ms. laven: dr. garcia, what would you do to address public safety? as i travel -- dr. garcia: as i travel around the state, it is the number one thing on everybody's mind. we want our children to be safe when they are out there playing. our streets are not safe. we need to change the culture, to reinforce our support for law enforcement. seattle itself is 375 policemen under. we cannot take the 911 calls and be there on time if we do that. second, we need to revive the community relationship between law enforcement and businesses. when we had that, we knew who did not belong in our streets. most importantly, we need to start prosecuting small crime again. small crime leads to bigger

crime. this is what our permissive society so far has done to our city and seattle into our state. truthfully, to our country. when it comes to fentanyl, there is no bigger crisis in america. a human being is dying every four minutes and 40 seconds. i walked 184 miles to bring awareness to this crisis and to honor everyone that has died from this senseless death. that is why i am proposing the americans against fentanyl act, giving manslaughter charges to drug dealers in putting them in prison, giving involuntary mandatory rehab to addicts. as a physician, i can tell you that their brains are telling them to lie, cheat, and steal to get their next fix and we need to get them out of that environment. ms. laven: senator cantwell, you mentioned community police in particular. a local resource. how would you be able to influence that as a u.s.

senator? sen. cantwell: community policing is part of what we do as part of the cops program, a successful effort by the federal government to help supplement what communities need as far as resources. it can be for training, for skill, but not just for hiring officers. in research it shows that if you increase capacity by 3%, you actually lower the crime rate by 3.5 percent. helping our local communities from the federal government is something that i support. this is in the american rescue plan. it helped us. i will continue to support these kinds of resources for seattle and greater cities around. ms. laven: thank you. dr. garcia, what about your ideas around voluntary commitment? the process of finding someone is generally governed by state law. how would you as senator influence that? you have 30 seconds.

5 dr. garcia: i moved it to seattle to be in the streets with the addicts, to be with those affected by the problem, so to find a true solution you have to dive into the culture of those affected by it. they have all come out and said thank you for making the decision for me when i could not make it for myself. we need to take them out of that environment, because their brain is not going to volunteer to bring them into a rehabilitation facility that is comprehensive and includes mental health. ms. laven: thank you. you're out of time. turning to housing, we touch on it briefly but we are going deeper. the price for home remains out of reach for many low and middle class families in washington. the median home price in our state is up at more than 52% from 2020. with that as a backdrop, here's a question from fewer ryan donahue. >> what specific policies would

you advocate for to increase the availability of affordable homeownership? a >> if you could not hear it, he asked what policies would you advocate for to increase the availability of affordable homeownership. dr. garcia? dr. garcia: unfortunately, housing is a big issue in our state and one that we should pay very close attention to and give more resources to. this is largely a state issue, but the federal government spends a lot of money helping states with housing. my wife was a product of affordable housing. i remember when i got here from cuba, my mother and i lived in an apartment half the size of the studio. it paid $110 a month. she lived there for 24 years until i graduated from residency and was able to buy her a home. i remember the picture of her face, when she came into her new home. what our friend is asking us

about his being able to have the affordability to buy a home. i want to come up with something that, according to results, bringing science into politics, have worked. v8 loans have worked because veterans don't have to come up with a down payment to buy a house. i want to turn that into the regular public. let's have programs with our lenders with -- that our regular citizens could afford to buy a house without a down payment. they still have to qualify, but in our economy today it's hard to come up with a down payment. the other idea is -- zero base regulations. let's start building more homes with less obstacles so that we can find a true solution. ms. laven: thank you, dr. garcia. senator cantwell, what specific policies would you advocate for two increase the availability of affordable homeownership? sen. cantwell: thank you.

the crisis that we have in the inflation rate affecting housing is that we haven't built enough supply. we need to build more affordable housing looked across the united states of america. i had a sheriff in eastern washington who said that he tried to hire a deputy who accepted the job but who call back and said that even in my rural county, i cannot afford to live there. i'm a leader in the u.s. senate with a republican colleague, todd young of indiana, increasing the capacity of the affordable low income housing tax credit. it is 95% of the affordable housing that gets built, it gets built with this tax credit. yesterday i was at a site in edmonds, washington, that was the opening of an affordable project just like this. what was it doing? providing workforce and previous homeless people housing. there is a grocery store across the street where they came over and said -- can we hire these

people? we need a workforce with holidays coming up. building capacity is important. we can't have firefighters, police officers, and nurses traveling three counties away just to have affordable housing. we need to build more supply. unfortunately, the bill got stopped by some of my republican colleagues. when we go back in the lame-duck, i hope we get it over the goal line. we need a significant increase to build thousands of new units in the state of washington. ms. laven: dr. garcia, let me ask you about the impediments to building that you referenced. are you talking about zoning? what are you referring to that a u.s. senator could influence? dr. garcia: i have a lot of contractor friends that want to build it, but they say that permits are multiple. the time that it takes for them to try and build is excessive.

the regulations are not about safety of housing, there are other regulations that don't pertain to pass access to building affordable housing. truly, they tell me, that when they finish with it, it's not affordable because of all the regulations they have had to follow. ms. laven: sorry, you are out of time. senator cantwell, you have work on legislation that has failed. if it has failed in the past, how can you bring it across the finish line? sen. cantwell: i was actually successful in getting a bump to the program in 2018 and it lasted for about four years. i wanted it to continue, we needed more supply, but even that little bit of supply helped us in the state of washington. now what i am trying to do is raise the voices. aarp is supporting my legislation. so, they are one of those voices saying let's get this over the goal line and hold members accountable. ms. laven: thank you, senator.

robin from silverdale consultant -- wrote in concerned about what she calls health deserts. >> the county is considered a health-care desert because of the downsizing of the naval hostel -- naval hospital. it could take a year to see some providers in the area. ms. laven: if you are not able to hear, she said the county is now considered a health care desert in large part because of the loss of the naval hospital and it can take a year to see providers in our area. adding to that, the average health care costs of an american in 2023 was 12,000 $900, up from 2019, when it was $11,500. higher costs for hospital care, prescription drugs, and insurance premiums are factors. what action would you take to make health care more affordable and accessible for someone like robin? sen. cantwell: we need to make health care more affordable. it is going to be a continued

task. obviously, we focus on prescription drugs right away and we need more capacity for primary care physicians. this is one of the reasons that the affordable care act was so important to do. it increased capacity to see more people at clinics and give more access in different ways than just a hospital facility. now what we need to do is continue to drive down the costs , as i mentioned, on health care. part of the whole system is the enormous amount that goes to prescription drugs. i believe in giving more access, besides growing with primary care physicians at the university of washington being a lead in the nation, giving them more resources to train skilled people, but to also increase access to telehealth and telemedicine. it's not the only solution for the people of caps off county,

but it is the answer for driving down costs overall. so, i want to bolster what we have done in the affordable care act and extend a more cost-effective insurance to those individuals and get more coverage. i remember being in kitsap county and the hospital told me that sometimes one person visited on a repeated basis because they didn't have insurance and it costs the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncompensated care. let's get everyone covered in the state. ms. laven: thank you. dr. garcia, what actions would you take to make health care more affordable and accessible? sen. cantwell: health -- dr. garcia: health care is somewhere where we can do better. i've been on the other end of holding patients because we don't have medical beds in the state of washington. what has happened in this country is health care is no longer controlled by physicians and patients, is controlled by insurance companies.

after that, we need better solutions. i propose that we deregulate some rules so that a citizen of washington could actually get a quote from any state in the country for insurance, thus lowering their costs, bringing more power to their hands. i also don't know that insurance companies, although i believe in free enterprise, that they could make money, that they should be on wall street answering to investors instead of the patients who need an mri or another study and are being denied. health care deserts is a real thing. you know, ob/gyn have had many closures over the past few years . truly, under senator cantwell's watch. the women of washington need health care. we are not talking about the issues of autoimmune disease, perimenopause, and cancer, and all of these things popping up in women's health care now where we don't have the ob/gyn

facilities to provide the care. mental health is another health care desert. i was in everton, washington, with the first urgent care for mental health for children. that is a step in the right direction. ms. laven: thank you. dr. garcia, i'm not sure that i heard an answer from either of you on the second part of robin's question, which was what you would do to address the health care deserts specifically. sen. cantwell: there is a bill in the u.s. senate that myself and senator wyden are the lead on, a fight to make sure that we get access and costs reimbursement for these facilities. we need to have rural health care. we need to have capacity for that and this would help to stabilize it. i don't have time in 30 seconds, but maybe you can have a follow-up. there are some strategies that other counties have deployed, pooling physicians together across the county that allowed them to keep the care within the

community. ms. laven: thank you, senator. dr. garcia, how would you address the health care desert? dr. garcia: in 2008 i warned that lower reimbursements from government would make us lose services in washington in her response was that we would bring the other reimbursements down to our level. certainly that has not worked out. what i propose is for congress to open up the vehicle access designation for these rural hospitals to be able to have better reimbursement and be able to fall before all the services and then bring the services to the community. ms. laven: thank you both very much. each of you has the opportunity to have one more 32nd proposal. -- rebuttal. sen. cantwell: my opponent said that he thought the affordable care act failed. it obviously increased capacity across the state of washington, not just in covering more people

on insurance, but in helping those critical access hospitals in creating access for those who did not care. the university of washington is the lead on this, they have an innovation grant that is basically saying how do we help pool the resources of physicians and get people to work collaboratively together and increase the access and reimbursement to telehealth and reward them with a value? that's a higher reward. ms. laven: we are going to move on, unless you are exercising a rebuttal as well? ok, switching to women's reproductive rights. in the last two years, the landscape has drastically changed across the u.s. following the decision to overturn roe v. wade. 13 states have banned abortion access, including our neighbor, idaho. meanwhile, an associated press poll from june found 70% of americans think that abortion

should be legal in most cases. one viewer submitted this question for you. as a senator from washington state, what do you believe the state's role is in protecting reproductive care and will you support national legislation to safeguard reproductive rights, including a woman's right to choose? dr. garcia. dr. garcia: the short answer is yes. the voters have made it clear that this is a pro-choice state and as your next senator i will protect and defend that choice. i know that the dobbs decision caused a lot of anxiety and mistrust in our government. i am asking every woman in the state of washington to trust who i am and what i have stood for. i am the physician that has prescribed contraceptives. the physician that was there at bedside when her mother had her daughter raped by an uncle. a husband whose wife almost died

of ectopic pregnancy. we have to send those patients to the operating room to terminate the pregnancy, or those women will die. my wife was a trauma nurse specializing in sexual assault. i have a long career where i would never handicap the medical profession from performing procedures that are lifesaving. the long answer is yes, i think that there should be a safety net all over our country for those women who choose to have an abortion to do so. the dobbs decision has caused a burden on washington, bringing other patients to our health care to provide those procedures, because those states don't. ms. laven: senator cantwell, what do you believe is the state role in protecting women's reproductive care and will you support national legislation to

safeguard reproductive rights, including a woman's right to choose? sen. cantwell: a woman's right to choose is a constitutional right to privacy. i would hope that all washingtonians would view this as an issue of our freedom. this should be a decision between a woman and her physician, not a politician or someone in government. my opponent will definitely go cast a vote for a republican leader whose agenda in washington is to stop roe v. wade. in fact, they have drawn up leaders to stop ivf, even. what i want to do is go back to washington and fight to codify roe v. wade into national law. while the state passed this by initiative, we are seeing the strains in our state of people coming from idaho and other states just to get reproductive care. you might be calling from idaho and you want to keep a child and with the complexity of your pregnancy, they don't want to see you and they send you to seattle. that is not the way the united

states of america should work. reproductive choice should be the law of the land across the united states. ms. laven: thank you, senator. your rebuttal, dr. garcia? you have 30 seconds. dr. garcia: yes, i want to make sure that everyone is clear on my position. or whether we have a republican leader or a democratic leader, these are issues that affect our everyday family. you know, one of my mentors was dan evans. he said that he would rather across the aisle them cross the people of washington. that is my mentality. i am going to do what's best for the people of washington. i am going to represent their ideals. in this case it is to uphold and protect to the pro-choice status of our state. ms. laven: thank you. we are moving to immigration, a hot button issue across the country. we have a straightforward question out from susan martin. >> earlier this year, a

comprehensive bipartisan bill on immigration and border security failed to pass in congress. would you support this bill if it comes up again? ms. laven: i know you would like me to repeat the question. susan again asked earlier this year, a comprehensive bipartisan bill on immigration and border security failed to pass in congress. would you support the bill if it came up again? sen. cantwell: i did support the legislation. it was a compromise. i have voted for four or five different compromises on border security, starting back with larry craig and ted kennedy. once again, a very constructive bipartisan bill that would have put more resources into protecting our border, got killed by republicans who would rather campaign on the issue than actually solve the issue. what is really important, i think, for washingtonians, is we

take care of our dreamers. that we have a comprehensive immigration law that allows people to come here, work, and return to their home country, like so many do from mexico, and to make sure that we continue to focus on what the right asylum laws are, not what president trump would do, put children in cages or separate families. this bill, as separated by -- this was a great idea, giving the resources to the border, but republicans chose to kill it. i want to make sure that when we go back, we make another attempt to get this over the goal line. ms. laven: earlier this year, a comprehensive bill on border security failed to pass in congress. would you support the bill if it came up again? dr. garcia: i wasn't there for the bill, to study it, but i

like the word bipartisan. i'm a dan evans republican and i think that the answers lie in the middle. if we have a bipartisan bill for immigration, it would be hard not to vote for it. i was an immigrant to this country. i could tell you about the night i arrived in miami and there were a lot of people. they were there at the airport to receive me. that fire that my mother had to come to this country is the fire that every immigrant that comes to this country has. [speaking another language] the dreamers came to this country not to their fault that they broke the law. i don't know why we haven't given them citizenship already. the other individuals that have been here that did break the law but have lived great lives here, are