Issue Position: Healthcare

Issue Position

Individuals, families and businesses in eastern Connecticut deserve a health care system that delivers quality, affordable and stable health coverage.

The Affordable Care Act, passed into law in March 2010, took a significant step towards addressing many of the unfair health insurance practices that impact families and businesses, invest in strengthening our health care workforce, and reorient our system of care to one that focuses on health maintenance -- rather than disease treatment. I am proud to have received the Patient Advocate Foundation's "Advocate of the Year" award for my work in ending the practice of pre-existing condition discrimination as part of the new law. Click here to learn more about the new law.

There is still so much more work to be done to ensure that our health care system remains affordable and accessible for eastern Connecticut families and businesses. That is why I am working to:

*Fund life-saving research fully at the NIH, which has improved our understanding of diseases, ranging from autism, to cancer, to Alzheimer's.

*Expand access to health care through investment in our community health centers, which serve as a critical first stop for many families in eastern Connecticut.

*End unfair barriers to care in the Medicare program that prevent patients and families from getting the care they so urgently need.

*Address the long-standing problems with the doctor reimbursement formula, known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), that subject patients to annual threats to access to their doctors.

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