Fixing Our Health Care System: Kathy will fight to protect people with pre-existing conditions and make health coverage more affordable. She will defend the Affordable Care Act from Republican cuts and support the creation of a public option. Kathy believes we should allow people to buy into Medicare at a younger age and build on the use of telemedicine to help with early detection and preventative care. Kathy also believes that North Carolina should join the 39 other states who have expanded Medicaid to extend health coverage to more than 500,000 North Carolinians who are currently uninsured. She has cosponsored legislation to close the Medicaid coverage gap and reduce reliance on expensive emergency room visits by increasing access to doctors and medical professionals. Kathy has also introduced legislation to increase the mental health resources available to school-age children and a maternal health bill to expand access to vital health services during and after pregnancy for people with Medicaid coverage.

Lower Prescription Drug Prices: When a chronic illness struck one of her daughters, Kathy experienced first-hand the frustration of fighting with big insurance companies to get the medication her daughter needed. She also saw the outrageous prices drug companies charge for prescription medications – drugs that could be purchased for half the price in other countries. Kathy supports allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, examining the role of drug benefit managers in high drug prices, and looking for other ways to make prescription medication more affordable. She will look into shortages of much needed medications and go after price gougers. In Congress, Kathy introduced legislation to expand transparency in the pharmaceutical industry and to limit the out-of-pocket costs for individuals and families with marketplace health plans.

Original source can be found here.