As a candidate and as a former legislator I have firmly supported women’s freedom to make choices about reproductive care with their doctors, and I have consistently supported funding and access to a full range of reproductive health care for women of all ages including contraception.

Access to health care is one of the best determinants of long term health and lower long-term health care expenses.  However, far too many women today lack access to adequate reproductive health care, and even the basic health care they need.    

Maternal mortality and related complications and infant mortality in the U.S. are far higher (>23%) than those in similarly large and developed countries. At least 10% of women under the age of 65 are uninsured, and many millions more are underinsured or otherwise lack access to comprehensive health care. 

Access to health care is an even greater challenge for women in low-income households, for women in rural areas like much of northern Wisconsin, for women of color including Native American women, and in states like Wisconsin that have placed burdens on reproductive care and that have failed to invest adequately in health care access and services.  

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 striking down Roe v. Wade has created even greater disparities for women’s reproductive health and has created a patchwork of conflicting state laws that limit or criminalize access to abortion even in instances where mothers' lives are at risk, and that limit access to other forms of reproductive health.  This has to change.

Recent actions by the FDA and state courts to ban or limit use of mifepristone will further limit access to one of the safest and most effective means of early stage abortion. 

Health outcomes for women are continuing to get worse under the Trump Administration. The massive cuts to Medicaid funding in 2027 are likely to dramatically limit access to health care and maternal care for low income women, and further worsen health care outcomes for women of all ages. 

The impacts of Medicaid cuts will affect northern Wisconsin especially hard as our region already suffers from sparsity of health care providers and because a higher proportion of northern Wisconsin residents currently rely on Medicaid for basic care.     

In Congress I will support:

• Passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act, creating a new legal protection for the right to provide and access abortion, free from medically unnecessary restrictions and bans.

• Codifying a right to sell and distribute mifepristone and other abortion medications in interstate commerce. 

• Ensuring access and adequate funding for preventative health, maternal care, pre-natal and post-natal care, for women of all ages and incomes.  

• Requiring states receiving federal funds to guarantee to provide medically indicated care to all women before, during, and after pregnancy.  

• Immediately restoring funding for Affordable Care Act Tax Credits

• Immediately restoring funding for Medicaid to ensure women in need of financial assistance retain access to basic care.  

• Expanding Medicare services to cover more of women’s unique health care needs

• Establishing a viable and comprehensive public option for health care available for reasonable cost to all Americans.