Affordable and Safe Healthcare
Health Care Should Be Affordable
Health Care in Wisconsin should be accessible, affordable, and high quality. I introduced and supported legislation to expand Medicaid, lower the cost of prescription drugs, and improve maternal and infant health outcomes.
Lowering the Cost of Prescription Drugs
No family should have to make the impossible choice between buying their life-saving medication or paying for groceries. I introduced legislation to make epinephrine, like EpiPens, more affordable and accessible, and supported legislation to improve transparency of prescription drug costs.
Mental Health Care
I am the proud author of the Mental Healthcare is Healthcare package of legislation. Serving as the Ranking Member on the Committee on Mental Health, the mental health needs of our children, our families, our teachers, our healthcare workers, ourselves, our employees, and more, are of tremendous importance to me, and I am working on future legislation to address these needs.
Mental healthcare needs to be addressed by the state legislature 2023 state budget. We needn’t look far to know how important this issue is in each of our lives to know the state needs to act, and act swiftly, to care for Wisconsinites.
Mental healthcare is healthcare.
Support Our Healthcare Heroes
I introduced the Healthcare Heroes Act to provide hazard pay, paid sick leave, and healthcare coverage for COVID-19 testing and treatment to frontline healthcare workers during this pandemic. It’s the job of healthcare workers to take care of us, and we need to do our job and take care of them.
Keeping Premiums Down & Accepting Federal Health Care Dollars
The people of Wisconsin want Medicaid expansion because it is the moral and fiscally responsible decision. It is estimated that the cost of private premiums purchased on the marketplace will go down by 19% with Medicaid expansion. If we do not expand Medicaid, over the next two years Wisconsin will spend $2 billion on paying for Medicaid expansion in other states. It’s time to bring our federal tax dollars home to support the people of Wisconsin.
Restore Reproductive Healthcare
The fall of Roe v. Wade triggered an archaic 174 year-old ban in WIsconsin that criminalizes abortion without exceptions for the health of mother (or any pregnant person), sexual assault/rape, or incest (incest is a form of sexual assault). This ban was passed when Wisconsin was 1 year-old, when women didn’t have the right to vote, and when women could not hold elected office. Given the chance to correct this ban in June 2022, the Republicans cowered and did not show up in Madison to vote, unwilling to publicly show their positions on this archaic ban, and leaving pregnant people and doctors relying on hospital lawyers to make healthcare decisions based on fear of lawsuits, and imprisonment. This is unacceptable. We need to protect our medical professionals from being imprisoned for taking care of their patients, restore healthcare to conversations between a patient and their doctor, and restore the rights of people across Wisconsin, and that is why I co-sponsored the bill to overturn this ban. We must live and legislate with empathy and compassion, and in this case that means overturning the archaic ban that went into effect when Roe V Wade fell.
Supporting Maternal Health
I support legislation to improve maternal and infant health outcomes and reduce health outcome disparities for women and babies of color. I supported the Healthy Women, Healthy Babies initiatives in Governor Evers’ proposed budget last budget cycle, which included funding for doula training and Medicaid reimbursement for doula services, extending Medicaid coverage postpartum to one-year, and expanding the Well Women Program.