Making Health Care Accessible

Since the start of my career in Congress, I have made it one of my top priorities to fight for high-quality, affordable health care for all. As a nation, we pay the most by far of any country in the world for both medical care and prescription drugs, and yet millions of our people remain uninsured, under-insured, burdened by high insurance premiums, and unable to afford the medicine they need. This situation is unacceptable, and I’m fighting to change it.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we have made critical progress in the effort to achieve universal coverage. Insurance companies can no longer discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, young people can stay on a parent’s plan until age 26, and tens of millions of previously uninsured Americans were able to obtain coverage because of the ACA. And while I will continue working to protect the ACA from politicians who are trying to destroy it, I also believe that we must build on the ACA’s success to shape a future in which high-quality, affordable health care is the available to every child, adult, and senior in America.

My commitment to protecting, strengthening, and building on the ACA led me to introduce my own bill as part of a larger effort to expand and improve coverage for people across our country. The Family Health Care Affordability Act would fix the so-called “family glitch” issue: this issue has prevented too many workers from being able to expand their employer-provided insurance to their families. And I authored an amendment to the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act designed to cap health care premiums—an amendment which, I am proud to say, was supported by 78 of my Republican colleagues. 

Prescription Drugs

Americans pay several times more for the same prescription drugs in other countries. And we pay the most by far of any country in the world for prescription drugs. I am appalled by the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs in our country, and I am committed to stopping the price-gouging of patients. Right now, Americans across our community and our country are rationing the lifesaving medication on which they depend, endangering their lives by going without their medication altogether, or facing financial ruin to get their prescriptions filled. This situation is absolutely unacceptable, and we must change it.

That’s why I am leading the charge in congress to finally allow Medicare to negotiate the soaring cost of prescription drugs and to make sure those lower negotiated rates are available to everyone, not just those on Medicare. I recently led a letter of several members of congress to Democratic leadership urging them to include Medicare negotiation power in the Build Back Better Act (also known as the reconciliation bill). If we empower Medicare by giving them the tools to effectively negotiate prescription drugs prices and make these prices available to the private sector, it will lower the cost of these medications not just for seniors, but also for Americans of all ages. This change is urgent given that drug companies hiked the prices of 783 drugs in January 2021. And 100% of these hikes were above the rate of inflation.

I also fought for and secured crucial changes to the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) to address drug costs. I led 27 freshman House Democrats in a letter calling for negotiations to be re-opened so changes could be made to protect consumers from excessive increases in drug prices as well as to strengthen labor standards and environmental terms. After I helped secure these changes, the ALF-CIO and United Steelworkers endorsed the USMCA and it was ultimately passed into law by a huge bipartisan majority vote in the House of 385 to 41.

Mental Health and Suicide Prevention

I am also committed to ensuring that ensure that mental health care resources are within reach for all people across our country. And I believe that all of us have a critical role to play in making suicide prevention a national priority in the face of a deeply alarming epidemic of suicide across our country.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers have borne the brunt of the pandemic and are particularly at-risk. That's why I introduced the bipartisan Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act. This bill would fund grants to health care institutions so that they can study and implement employee programs designed to reduce and prevent suicide, burnout, mental and behavioral health conditions, and substance use disorders. Health care professionals deserve access to a mental health care infrastructure that works for them as they continue their tireless work to keep our nation healthy.

We also know that young people are particularly at-risk, which is why I introduced the Enhancing Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Through Campus Planning Act. If enacted, this legislation would help fill the gap in unmet mental health needs of college students by requiring the Department of Education to coordinate with the HHS Secretary to encourage institutions of higher education to develop and implement comprehensive mental health and suicide prevention plans. And because older Americans are also disproportionately at-risk of suicide, I worked hard to include an amendment to the latest reauthorization of the Older Americans Act which adds screening for suicide to the disease prevention and health promotion services provided under this law. I'm proud to say that my amendment passed unanimously through the Education & Labor Committee—earning the support of Republicans and Democrats alike.

When families face the extraordinary heartbreak of suicide, I believe we as a country have an obligation to stand alongside them in support and solidarity. That's why I introduced the Greater Mental Health Access Act, which would help people impacted by suicide access the mental health care they need by making the suicide of a loved one a "qualifying life event" allowing people without coverage to enroll for coverage at any time.

Together, we can put an end to the stigma surrounding mental health care and suicide awareness. As a Member of Congress, I am committed to doing the hard work necessary to make this goal a reality.

If you or a loved one require immediate assistance, please call 911 (Emergency Medical Services) or 899 (the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline), both of which are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.