Ahead of the Nov. 3 general election, the Local invited several candidates running for local and federal offices to answer questions submitted by Northwest Philadelphia organizations. Their responses were published in last week’s issue.

The Local also interviewed state Rep. Tarik Khan and Chris Johnson, who won the Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania’s 194th and 200th state House districts, respectively. Both ran unopposed in this week’s general election. Johnson will fill the Mt. Airy seat currently represented by Chris Rabb.

Participants were Germantown United Community Development Corporation, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals from Temple Health – Chestnut Hill Hospital, the Alden Park Tenants’ Association, and a final question from the Local.

Each group submitted one question for a total of five. The Local gave each candidate one minute to think about each answer and two minutes to respond on camera. At the end, candidates were given an additional two minutes to discuss their platforms.

The candidates received only one chance to respond to the questions, with no re-shoots, and did not receive the questions prior to the shoot.

Below are Khan’s and Johnson’s partial answers to the first question, posed by the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals from Temple Health – Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Do you support or oppose the recent cuts to Medicaid enacted last year? If so, what benefit do you see in these cuts? If not, what policy actions can be taken at the state level to combat or reverse these effects? And how is a person with a debilitating illness supposed to fulfill the Medicaid work requirements coming in January 2027?

Partial response from Rep. Tarik Khan: “I’m absolutely opposed; it was absolutely ridiculous. For those of you who don’t know, Donald Trump and his congressional allies and enabler passed what they call the Big Beautiful (Bill), and what the [bill] did was basically throw hundreds of thousands of people off their health insurance, and is also exploding the national debt. I think it’s as much as $3 trillion to pay for tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations. It’s absolutely devastating. I’m a nurse practitioner, and I have patients that have lost or will lose their health insurance because of the actions of the federal government.”

Response from Chris Johnson: “I certainly oppose the recent cuts to Medicaid that were enacted last year under the federal law that the Republican-led Congress passed. We have to find a way to restore the Medicaid status back to previous levels, but that’s going to be the work that Congress has to do. At the state level, we have to find a way to ensure that we can usher more people into our healthcare system, whether it’s trying to find ways to raise revenue in order to cover the potential coverage that the state will have to provide in order to ensure that more of our Pennsylvanians, our vulnerable, sick, and seniors, and those who access Medicaid can get access to those healthcare services as well. But we also need to make sure that we elect members of Congress who are going to reverse those cuts and ensure that we can expand healthcare and healthcare access to more Pennsylvanians here across the Commonwealth as well.”

To watch and read the full interviews, visit our social media pages or website, chestnuthilllocal.com.