Issue Position: Healthcare

Issue Position

The Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") is the most significant change in the way health care is paid for in the U.S. since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid nearly 50 years ago. The ACA is placing health insurance, and thus health care, within the reach of tens of millions of Americans who have for far too long been effectively been denied access. Despite a deeply flawed rollout, the Act should, by most economists' estimates, reduce the cost of care for all but a very small number of Americans while improving the overall health of the Nation. Congress has failed to work on improvements to the ACA, but has instead wasted time and tens of millions of dollars on dozens of meaningless repeal votes while failing to offer any meaningful alternatives. I will work to refine and improve health care reform.

In 2011, some 1,100 pieces of legislation restricting access to reproductive health care were introduced around the Nation. These included not only restrictions on access to abortion, but "personhood" bills, the defunding of primary care clinics and public health clinics that represent the only source of care for millions of poor women, the requirement of such intrusive and unnecessary procedures as trans-vaginal ultrasound, and even restrictions on access to contraception and sex education. These continuing efforts must be fought.

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