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Health Care

Access to affordable and high-quality health care is one of the most important and challenging issues facing Illinois families. The health inequities laid bare by COVID-19 have shown that lack of access to health care can have devastating outcomes. In Congress, I'm working to ensure that racial and ethnically diverse communities, as well rural and urban communities, have access to affordable health care because health care is a human right.

I have the honor of serving on the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee – Congress' main policy writing institution for healthcare legislation – and I chair the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust – where I use that platform to raise the alarm on key health equity issues and convene stakeholders to propose solutions. These roles place me at the nexus of legislative efforts to ensure quality, affordable healthcare for all Illinoisans.

My top healthcare priorities are:

Addressing health inequities in our communities,

protecting a woman's right to abortions, and making her own health care choices,

addressing the maternal mortality and morbidity crisis,

diversifying clinical trials,

expanding access to dental care,

increasing diversity within the ranks of health care providers,

fostering innovation at the intersection of technology, health care and telemedicine, and

●  protecting Medicare and Medicaid for future generations.

Improving our nation's health requires a dedicated, and holistic advancement of access to quality and affordable health care, as well as a strong focus on promoting physical and mental health, nutrition and preventative strategies and treatment including increased access to oral health care and healthcare innovation.

Since 2017, I have been leading the charge in Congress to end the maternal mortality crisis, which has a disproportionate impact on Black and Indigenous people. I have been championing the MOMMA’s Act and will continue to push for this bill to pass into law, which would expand Medicaid postpartum coverage, address implicit bias and racism in health care settings, standardize maternal mortality and morbidity data collection across states and disseminate best shared practices and emergency protocols to prevent maternal mortality and morbidity.

We must also address the root causes of gun violence and begin treating it as the public health crisis it is. In April 2022, I introduced the Health Equity and Accountability Act which directly addresses the intersections of health inequities through race, ethnicity, immigration status, and numerous other social factors such as gun violence and mental health. Gun violence is a threat to our public health, and expanding access to, and quality of, mental health care services will help reduce the threat of gun violence and gun suicides.

While access to care and systemic innovation are important, it is necessary to recognize that a host of social, economic and environmental factors contribute significantly to an individual's health outcomes. That's why I am pushing for policies that benefit the overall well-being of our communities, in addition to advancing legislation that reduces barriers to accessing care.