Health Care
When I worked at Legal Aid, I worked with uninsured families who had been bankrupted by an illness and were experiencing financial hardship on top of poor health. The Affordable Care Act has significantly expanded access to health care, including children’s oral health services, and we must maintain its protections for people with pre-existing conditions and insurance subsidies for people who qualify financially. More must be done, however, to make sure everyone has access to affordable, quality health care. I am proud to be a member of the Medicare for All Caucus and will continue to work to expand coverage and make health care more affordable for all.
It is critical that we build a health care workforce that can meet our country’s increasing needs. As a leader on the Congressional Nursing Caucus I helped craft bipartisan solutions to address the nursing shortage across the country, including making sure we have safe staffing in hospitals and providing additional funding for nurse training and workforce development.
Across the country and here in Northwest Oregon, communities are experiencing the tragic and often deadly emergency of opioid abuse. I have met with parents, health care professionals, community leaders, veterans, and people from all walks of life who have shared heart-wrenching stories about how the opioid crisis is taking lives and inflicting pain on Oregon families. My report on the opioid crisis includes what I learned, what steps we’ve already taken, and my priorities moving forward. One priority is making it as easy to dispose of unused opioids as it is to get a prescription. I introduced The Safe Disposal of Opioids Act to create a grant program to help pharmacies and other qualified locations install and maintain drug disposal bins. This bill requires opioid manufacturers to fund these grants through a small fee on the opioids they sell.
Rising prescription drug costs are a burden for many Americans, particularly seniors. I have heard too many stories of seniors forced to leave a prescription unfilled or cut pills in half because of high costs. We must do more to make prescription drugs more accessible and affordable to everyone. Current law prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating for lower drug prices in Medicare. We should reverse this unnecessary restriction and leverage the purchasing power of the government to negotiate better prices for medications.
I will continue to be a strong advocate for consumers and patients as we work to address prescription drug costs and improve access to affordable health care for all.
More on Health Care
Grabner would like to see that change. So would U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, the Democrat who represents McMinnville in Oregon’s First Congressional District.
On Monday, Bonamici visited Henderson House, the local nonprofit organization that responds to domestic violence and sexual assault, to hear how staff members and others would change the current system.
Bonamici gave a general overview of issues that surfaced at other town hall meetings, ranging from healthcare and immigrant family separations, to the environment, Social Security, Medicare and the Trump administration.
Bonamici began by explaining her view on healthcare, a topic she said many are worried about. "I'm interested in strengthening access to health care, not taking it away," she said. "We need to work together to find a way to make sure that people have access to health care."
SALEM — Oregon Democrats on Capitol Hill decried a proposed federal rule change Friday, claiming it would restrict the ability of the state's publicly-funded home health care workers to unionize.
In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it would repeal an Obama administration 2014 rule that allowed states to deduct fees for "benefits customary to employees," including union dues, directly from health workers' pay.
WASHINGTON: - Democratic members of the Oregon congressional delegation, including Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, and Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Peter DeFazio, Earl Blumenauer and Kurt Schrader called on the Trump administration Friday to drop a proposed rule they said would unjustifiably restrict home care workers’ ability to form unions and collectively bargain for higher wages, better working conditions, expanded benefits and new training opportunities.
U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici was the keynote speaker at the ceremonial opening of Virginia Garcia's new Beaverton Wellness Clinic.
The clinic's opening festivities took place Aug. 10 and 11, just before the observance this week of National Health Center Week.
Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center has opened a clinic at 2725 S.W. Cedar Hills Blvd., Suite 200, that is three times the size of the clinic it has had in Beaverton since 2004. It runs several clinics and programs in Washington and Yamhill counties, both of which are in Bonamici's 1st Congressional District.
Virginia Garcia Memorial Foundation has opened a larger primary-care clinic in Beaverton.
The public will have a chance to look inside on Saturday, Aug. 11.
Most of the new 36,000-square-foot clinic at 2725 S.W. Cedar Hills Blvd., Suite 200, began operation July 23. The dental clinic was scheduled to open Wednesday, Aug. 8.
Bipartisan legislation that was cosponsored by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to address nursing shortages in Hawai‘i and across the country unanimously passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday, July 23, 2018.
Oregon Democrat congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici explains why President Trump's praise of Kim Jong Un does not make sense to her, the concerns she has about the new agreement between the United States and North Korea, the bills in the House to help fight the opioid crisis, and her thoughts on immigration reform.