Issue Position: Healthcare

Issue Position

We need a healthcare system that truly works for all. As we work towards healthcare for all, whether through a single-payer system or another way to get there, we must continue to work to improve the system we have. Access to affordable, high-quality healthcare is essential. Without it, children cannot learn, adults cannot hold down a job or raise a family, senior citizens cannot live in dignity as they deserve.

I have spent years fighting to expand access to healthcare, and we have made great strides in recent years, but, as experience shows, those achievements remain vulnerable, and those with the most need face the greatest risk.

Because of this, we need to take steps to ensure we protect key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, no matter what happens at the federal level. We should act now to maintain the insurance mandate. We should ensure that gender-based ratings remain a thing of the past because women should not pay more for insurance just because they are women.

We need to protect a women's right to make healthcare decisions about her own body. We must pass the Reproductive Health Care Act, and ensure that Roe v. Wade protections for abortion access remain the law in Rhode Island, no matter what happens at the Supreme Court. We also must make sure that birth control remains available without a co-pay.

We can build on the progress we have made by continuing to expand access to preventive care, to oral healthcare, and to behavioral health services, and to work to make sure that healthcare is accessible to all.

Experience shows that is possible to provide better care, achieve better outcomes, and spend more efficiently when the healthcare system puts the needs of patients and their families first, and when we incentivize quality over quantity.

This will not be easy. What we have achieved in recent years is the product of decades of hard work, but it is essential if we are going to realize a healthcare system that truly works for all.

As your representative, I will bring my years of policy, advocacy, and legal experience to the State House every day to fight to make sure we protect the gains we have made and to make sure we continue to improve our healthcare system.

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