Issue Position: Healthcare

Issue Position

On the Salinas City Council and as Mayor, Anna helped develop a health care project to reduce asthma, diabetes and obesity in local communities and to increase accessibility to quality health care for low-income residents. Understanding that all health issues are related, and that many times residents are afraid to get the exercise they need because of the threat of violence in the community, Anna worked extensively to reduce gang and domestic violence by building partnerships in the community to combat the root causes. She founded Partners for Peace to focus on violence as a public health issue, not a suppression issue. Participants were encouraged to get health check ups, to exercise, eat healthy, and work together to keep the community safe.
Understanding that there is a need for comprehensive healthcare coverage, in the Assembly, Anna voted for single-payer health care. She is proud of the success of Covered California, millions of families and children now have health coverage, but she knows that there is still work to be done. There is a need for more health care providers, more work on education and disease prevention, a need for rural health clinics and clinics located in disadvantaged communities, a higher reimbursement rate for medi-cal and a need to extend coverage to more families.

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