Issue Position: Health Care

Issue Position

This pandemic should be a massive wake-up call for those who doubt the necessity of ensuring all Americans have health insurance.

The link between health and wealth must be broken. It is essential that every single American has great health care. And Georgia already faced a shocking health crisis, with among the highest rates of uninsurance and maternal mortality in the country.

In the U.S. Senate, I'll work to make great health insurance a simple, affordable, reassuring reality for all of us. Other countries have achieved this. So can we.

Health insurance is too expensive and complex, and protections for women, young people, and pre-existing conditions are under attack. Few plans are available, premiums are high, surprise billing is frequent, and dealing with insurance companies can be a nightmare.

Even today, in the midst of a massive health crisis, the GOP, led by David Perdue, is still working to rip health insurance from tens of millions of Americans. The GOP and David Perdue have also long planned to cut Medicare, putting health care for seniors at risk.

I'll vote to protect and strengthen Medicare, and I support offering all Americans a public health insurance option as an affordable alternative to private insurance.

The public plan's premiums will be affordable for all and there will be no deductibles for necessary care. Its coverage will be comprehensive -- including preventative care, prescription drugs, dental, vision, hearing, mental health, and neonatal and postnatal care. Medicaid expansion and auto-enrollment of the uninsured will ensure all Americans are covered regardless of wealth.

Your insurance will be your choice. Americans will be free to maintain exclusively private health insurance or to purchase supplemental private insurance on top of the public plan if they so choose.

For those with private insurance, I'll vote to strengthen the Affordable Care Act's protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions, women, and young people. Those protections remain under attack by the health insurance industry and their allies in the GOP.

I'll vote to crack down on price gouging by drug companies and make more generic medicine available.

I'll work relentlessly to deliver federal funds to build more health clinics and hire more health care workers across Georgia, especially in rural and underserved communities, and to solve Georgia's shocking and shameful maternal health crisis.

And I'll introduce legislation to expand the U.S. Public Health Service so it can recruit, train, and deploy more medical teams to clinics across Georgia and the nation.

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