Health care
Sen. Booker has witnessed the impacts of our broken healthcare system on New Jersey’s families and believes that all Americans should have access to affordable, quality healthcare. While he was not yet in Congress at the time of the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he supports the ACA’s goal of ensuring access to quality care and is working tirelessly to make sure that the law is delivering on its promise. Sen. Booker is committed to monitoring the ACA’s implementation and making sure it works for all New Jerseyans. For more information on the Affordable Care Act, please visit Healthcare.gov
Prevention and Wellness
Sen. Booker supports universal access to preventive care, including the provision in the ACA that requires insurance companies to cover proven preventive health care services at no cost to the policy-holder. And he is a strong supporter of Community Health Centers, which provide quality care in underserved neighborhoods.
The Senator also believes that wellness initiatives should begin early in life and supports investing in prenatal and early childhood health initiatives – things like in home nurse visiting programs such as the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, which improves health and development outcomes for at-risk children.
Medicare
Sen. Booker knows how important it is that Congress keep the promise of Medicare to our seniors – in New Jersey alone, more than 1.2 million seniors rely on the program for health coverage. That is why Sen. Booker is working to protect Medicare and Rejects any attempts to turn Medicare into a voucher program. While the ACA has helped make prescription drugs more affordable for our seniors and improved Medicare’s financial outlook, we must continue to work to protect Medicare for this and future generations of seniors.
Biomedical Research
Sen. Booker is a strong supporter of biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose research has produced life-saving treatments and created significant economic advantages for our country. New Jersey is home to more than 250 NIH research grants which have produced real results such as breakthroughs in leukemia, blindness, and traumatic injuries. In New Jersey, the biopharmaceutical sector also is an engine of economic growth. The industry directly supports more than 70,000 jobs and an additional 251,000 jobs related to it – positions with construction and IT firms and in jobs generated by these companies’ employees.
Sen. Booker has also been a staunch advocate for research on Parkinson’s disease, a motor system disorder that results from the loss of certain brain cells. This year, approximately 60,000 Americans will be diagnosed with Parkinson's, joining the 1 million people already living with the disease in the United States and the 4 million to 6 million diagnosed with it worldwide. His experience with his late father’s Parkinson’s disease is among the many motivations for Sen. Booker’s commitment to finding a cure.