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WAVERLY — Though the Iowa caucuses are a year and a half away, by now Iowans have heard many promises from 2020 presidential candidates.

So when a woman asked Beto O’Rourke about candidates promising “unrealistic things” and asked “to not pander to us,” O’Rourke agreed, laying out his plan for health care: Those with employer insurance would keep it, those who can’t afford co-pays could enroll in Medicare, and he would shore up the Affordable Care Act and end Medicaid privatization in states like Iowa.

“The total cost of this program is a fraction of ‘Medicare for All,’” O’Rourke said during a stop Tuesday at Wartburg College in Waverly.

In a race of nearly two dozen Democratic candidates, some distinguishing themselves from the pack with bolder progressive ideas like “Medicare for All,” the former Texas representative seemed to be trying to stick to a more balanced approach to woo Iowa’s mostly independent voters.

“You’ve heard what our challenges are,” he told a crowd of around 180. “We’re either going to be defined by our pettiness ... or we will be defined by the great things that we want to do.”