Republican Senate candidates disagreed at a Wednesday forum in Casper on whether a rural federal healthcare program will solve the state’s cost and access problems. Rep. Harriet Hageman touted the Rural Health Transformation Program while Sam Mead said a more comprehensive solution is necessary. Candidate Jimmy Skovgard called for a state-run fund that negotiates for better pricing while John Allan Holtz acknowledged a problem but offered no solution. Jill Edwards, who has said healthcare is a priority issue, did not appear at the two-hour session. The evening at Casper College, sponsored by the League of Women Voters, Wyoming Public Media and WyoFile, also featured Democrats James Byrd and Billy Benavidez in a separate forum. A panel of journalists asked questions that ranged from public land use, Social Security and the balance of legislative and executive power. Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman talks during a forum for U.S. Senate candidates hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Casper College. (Dan Cepeda for WyoFile) On the Rural Health Transformation Program, Hageman said she believes the program, which seeks state proposals for federal dollars but has stumbled in Wyoming, will “ultimately” be transformative. “Wyoming will receive over $500 million over a five year period … to address the specific needs of our communities,” said Hageman, who backed the measure in the House. “It just went in over the last few days.” Her optimism clashed with Mead’s view that the program would not transform the rural healthcare landscape. “This is a bigger problem than just rural health,” he said. “It’s the fact that our entire health insurance industry is broken, and until we fix that, we are not going to make any improvements on the burden it places on people.” The larger solution has to be found by including Wyoming in an insurance pool with residents of other states, creating “a nationwide marketplace instead of a statewide one,” Mead said. Hageman blamed the loss of insurers in Wyoming on Obamacare – the Affordable Care Act — but agreed with Mead about Wyoming joining a larger insurance marketplace. She also said drug pricing rules and practices need to be looked at. Public lands Hageman, who as an attorney has fought the federal government over various public land-use conflicts, listed “overregulation” as a top problem Wyoming faces. In a state where 48% of the land is owned by the federal government, “that has a huge impact, because the nature of the industries that we have,” she said. Republican Sam Mead talks during a forum for U.S. Senate candidates hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Casper College. (Dan Cepeda for WyoFile) Mead, who has campaigned on the slogan “protect public lands,” hit Hageman on that topic. Among other things, she signed on to a lawsuit that challenged the ability of the federal government to own property — property like national forests and Bureau of Land Management acreage. “We have representatives that support federal mandates disposing of our federal lands,” Mead said. “That’s not the Wyoming way.” Skovgard said the state doesn’t have the wherewithal to manage all its federal land. “The resources that we have at the state right now don’t exist,” he said. Other Trump administration public land initiatives, including selling public property, are equally bad, he suggested. “To talk about randomly selling off 0.5% to 0.75% is ridiculous.” Hageman touted the Fix Our Forest Act and Great American Outdoors Act as measures that support public lands. She is a cosponsor of the second measure. Republican John Allan Holtz talks during a forum for U.S. Senate candidates hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Casper College. (Dan Cepeda for WyoFile) “I have worked diligently and very hard in Congress to make sure that we are protecting those resources,” she said, “despite the accusations that might be made at different times.” Holtz said he’s in favor of “keeping things pretty much the way they are,” but warned about drought and its effects. “You look at the fires that are popping up all over Wyoming as recently as today,” he said, warning that “opening these lands to tourists, and that kind of thing, is not a good idea.” Power tilt The candidates also were asked about the tilt in power — in recent years — from the legislative to the executive branch. Hageman saw the issue as one pitting elected officials against a deep state, not a president running roughshod over Congress. The legislative branch “has actually abdicated its responsibilities in many ways by allowing the executive agencies to take over their legislating and lawmaking authority,” she said. “A nameless faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. may not have any idea of what your issues are,” she said, “but I should, as your representative, and that’s why it’s so important that the legislative branch reclaim its authority.” Republican Jimmy Skovgard talks during a forum for U.S. Senate candidates hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, at Casper College. (Dan Cepeda for WyoFile) Skovgard, who said the executive branch needs to be reined in, saw the question as one of a president acting impulsively. “We can wake up the next morning and be in a war when we had no say in that,” he said. “We should be reaching out to our constituencies when we see these types of grabs for power.” Candidates also addressed Social Security solvency. Skovgard called for a trust fund based on Wyoming’s permanent mineral trust fund, which “could be a model for the federal government.” Mead would salvage the program. “We’ve all of us been paying into Social Security,” he said. It’s not an entitlement, [but] something we’ve earned through our hard work.” Hageman talked about Medicaid fraud and reform. Candidates also described how they would act when vetting and approving presidential nominees. That question arose recently after the Senate approved U.S. Attorney for Wyoming Darin Smith’s nomination days after federal judges threw out nine indictments based on his misconduct before a grand jury.  “I would ask the Lord for guidance,” Holtz said. Hageman said she would work with nominees and “make sure that they are going to protect, or that they are going to focus on and address Wyoming issues.” Mead said the appointees should be some of the best minds in the world. “That’s not the case now.” For an unfit candidate, “the Constitution supersedes the allegiance that you have to the President of the United States,” Skovgard said. Democrats, too On the Democratic stage, Byrd said the state delegation does not represent Wyoming. “They represent the Beltway interests, the corporate boardrooms and the silicon bros,” he said. Benavidez said we are living in a surveillance state. “No one wants to talk about it, but I’m making [it] abundantly known,” he said. “Online, you’ve seen many what you want to call towers being cut down, what have you, because people want their privacy back.” Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate James Byrd talks during a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming at Casper College on Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (Dan Cepeda for WyoFile) Byrd has supported keeping public lands in public hands and backed conservation initiatives. Selling public land “is a bad idea,” he said. “We’re looking at legacy ranches that could not survive if we got rid of their public land,” he said. “We’re looking at the tourism industry, … backcountry guiding, fishing, and all those related things, the hospitality industry that provides the hotels that some of you stay in when you travel around the state — will all be directly impacted by this.” Byrd said the shift of power from legislators to the president “is not what our founding fathers wanted.” Congress “does nothing but sit on its thumbs and acquiesces to the executive,” he said of today’s Beltway scene. “What I will do is go back there and put constitutional rules back into place.” Benavidez called for the balance to return “to the old-school days.” Quite old school. “Rather be going back to the ’80s, going back to the ‘50s, or even going back to the 1900s,” he said. Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Billy Benavidez talks during a candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Wyoming at Casper College on Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (Dan Cepeda for WyoFile) Regarding healthcare, Benavidez called for “something new, vibrant.” “Let the market dictate what needs to happen using capitalism, the old-school word of capitalism, in healthcare,” he said. “And let’s see what happens because the other two options we’ve done has not worked.” Byrd criticized insurance and drug companies. Regarding Big Pharma, “what they do is they set prices that are for their profit margins and not actually with the people in the state of Wyoming concerned.” On fossil fuels and new energy, Byrd sees an opportunity for a blend. “The power companies are shifting away from coal not because it’s a war on coal and it’s politically correct, but because their shareholders are demanding a cleaner environment,” he said. 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