Photo by Deb Gau State legislative candidates weighed in on the issues during a forum Monday night at Southwest Minnesota State University. Rep. Chris Swedzinski and Tom Wyatt-Yerka are running for the Minnesota House of Representatives in District 16A.

MARSHALL — With Election Day fast approaching, area residents got a chance to get their questions for state legislative candidates answered. A candidate forum Monday night at Southwest Minnesota State University brought together candidates for the Minnesota House of Representatives in District 16A and 22A.

Incumbent candidate Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, and challenger Thomas Wyatt-Yerka, DFL-Marshall, are running in District 16A. The district includes Lac Qui Parle, Yellow Medicine, and parts of Lyon and Redwood counties. In District 22A, incumbent candidate Joe Schomacker, R-Luverne, and challenger Maxwell Kaufman, DFL-Fulda, are running. District 22A includes Lincoln, Pipestone, Murray, Rock, and parts of Lyon and Nobles counties.

Candidates took turns answering questions submitted by an audience including area residents, SMSU students and members of local media.

Health care was a topic that generated a lot of interest from the audience. Within the span of the hour-long forum, candidates got a few different questions related to health care — including whether they would support single-payer health care for Minnesotans.

None of the candidates had a lot of direct support for starting a single-payer health care system in Minnesota. One big difficulty, they said, would be compatibility with neighboring states.

While single-payer might have potential at the national level, “It’s not going to work if we go it alone,” Wyatt-Yerka said. “I think what we can do here in Minnesota, we can put in a public option for MinnesotaCare.”

“Until there’s some sort of national single-payer health system, then I would support a MinnesotaCare buy-in option,” Kaufman said.

Schomacker said it should be noted that health care and insurance costs were a problem even before the Affordable Care Act was put in place.

“We need to be looking at solutions that help support and stablize the health insurance market,” he said. Two years ago, the state Legislature passed a reinsurance bill, which helped stabilize rates in the individual market. That helped in the short-term, he said, and legislators could continue to work toward bipartisan efforts to reduce costs.

“The issue that we have across the state is cost,” Swedzinski said. At the national level, he said, that included the cost of developing prescription drugs. Swedzinski said the U.S. needed to get other countries to share in more research and development costs. He also said tort reform and more health care workers in the field were needed.

Candidates had a variety of responses as to what they would do to address the problem of a lack of mental health care beds in Minnesota.

“Oftentimes, our jail systems have been picking up the pieces for where our general system has really failed,” Swedzinski said. Minnesota’s mental health care has fewer large facilities today. Swedzinski said it might be possible to address the problem. “To really focus on building beds, pushing through the bonding bill to build more facilities on a regional basis, that’s something that can be done.”

Wyatt-Yerka said he thought Minnesota could work to bring more mental health care professionals into rural areas. However, the state also needed more beds, and services available in communities that aren’t county seats.

Kaufman and Schomacker said access to mental health care was important, but so was non-crisis care and prevention. “The first thing I think we need to do is work on the stigma,” so people get help before they need residential care, Schomacker said. But the state also needs to build toward having more beds available.

“Mental health is something that’s affected by all aspects of our lives,” Kaufman said. Addressing problems like unemployment and poverty would also help prevent mental health crisis.

While the discussion of health care issues had a more long-term focus, the audience also asked candidates about a pressing issue: state conformity with federal tax reforms. Would candidates work with Minnesota’s next governor for tax conformity before Feb. 1?

“I think we’ve kind of passed some of the deadlines on what it would take just to get the Department of Revenue and the tax accounting software to where we need to be,” Schomacker said. However, he said, “I think we were closer than a lot of people thought we would get at the end of this last legislative session.” Working with a new governor would give legislators a chance to “start from scratch” on addressing issues like the estate tax, and business tax deductions.

“I would welcome the opportunity to work with the new governor, to work toward tax conformity,” Kaufman said. “One thing I would offer, is I would not only vote along party lines to do that.”

Swedzinski said he wanted to take a more proactive approach to passing a tax conformity bill.

“I would like, within a week or two after the election, to ask Governor Dayton to call a special session,” he said. Swedzinski said he wanted to see certain items included in the tax bill, like group home funding, get addressed as well.

Wyatt-Yerka said a special session was an option, but he thought the state Legislature really needed a change before it would be effective.

“I think lot of us here in this room don’t necessarily have faith we would get anything done during that special session,” Wyatt-Yerka said. In the past couple of legislative sessions, state lawmakers have brought forward bills as the last minute. “They haven’t regulated themselves to make sure they’re doing their jobs. They haven’t earned our trust in this regard, I don’t think.”

Wyatt-Yerka said he thought the Legislature needed to be more bipartisan, and needed reform to prevent those kinds of situations. Hopefully, he said, “we can change it this year.”