Rep. Chris Stewart and challenger Luz Robles meet for a debate at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Thursday September 25, 2014. The two are contending for Utah's 2nd Congressional District.

Trent Nelson,

SALT LAKE CITY Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, and state Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake, candidates for Utah's 2nd Congressional District, talked health care as they took questions from potential voters Thursday morning on KSL Newsradio.

Stewart, a Republican seeking a second term in Congress, repeatedly denounced President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act during the debate on KSL's "The Doug Wright Show," insisting the entire legislation should be scrapped.

"It sounds overly partisan, but this is the worst piece of legislation written in generations," said Stewart, who insists there are other options for helping Americans who can't access health care. "I just think we have to start over on this."

Robles, his Democratic challenger and six-year state senator, called the Affordable Care Act imperfect but said it took important first steps in helping Americans, including many people across Utah, to afford health insurance.

"It's moving in the right direction. More people are covered now than we have ever seen in this nation," she said. "There are issues with cost containment that I think Congress should be addressing but I don't know that just repealing, which a lot of people continue to speak on, is the solution."

Stewart voiced support for Gov. Gary Herbert's Healthy Utah proposal, an alternative to Medicaid expansion that would use federal funds available under the Affordable Care Act to help low-income Utahns. Robles said she believes accepting full Medicaid expansion would have been a more expedient solution, but in the absence of that option, she also supports the governor's plan.

Stewart went on to praise a "work effort" that will likely be necessary for Healthy Utah to pass the Legislature as a way for those receiving help to maintain dignity. Robles called the work element a difficult caveat to hold over people who aren't healthy.

The governor's plan also requires approval from the Obama administration.

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Health care divides Stewart, Robles in congressional debate