Better Health Care, Closer to Home

Every Mainer should be able to get the health care and support they need without traveling hours, waiting months for an appointment, or worrying that getting care will put them in financial hardship. My goal is simple: health care and social services should be accessible, efficient, and affordable for Mainers at every stage of life.

My Plan to Deliver Better Healthcare Closer to Home

• Bring more health care professionals to rural Maine. Too many people in our community have to travel long distances or wait too long to see a doctor, dentist, or other provider. I support stronger incentives for health professionals to live and practice in underserved rural communities, including loan repayment and other workforce programs that help us compete for the people we need.

• Help more seniors age at home. Most seniors want to remain independent and in their own communities for as long as possible. I support increasing reimbursement rates for direct care services so providers can recruit and retain the workers who help seniors and people with disabilities live safely and independently at home. Investing in home-based care can improve quality of life while reducing reliance on more expensive institutional care.

• Protect access to reproductive health care. Decisions about pregnancy and reproductive health belong between patients and their health care providers. I oppose restrictions that interfere with access to reproductive health care and will work to ensure that Mainers can continue to receive safe, timely care.

• Restore competition and accountability in health care. Continued consolidation can leave patients with fewer choices and higher costs. I support greater scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions involving hospitals, physician practices, pharmacies, and other health care companies, particularly when consolidation threatens to increase prices, reduce services, or diminish the quality of care available to Maine patients.

• Fix Maine’s broken child welfare system. Our child welfare system is not serving children and families as well as it should. Reform must focus first on keeping children safe, while giving caseworkers manageable workloads, strengthening accountability, improving support for foster and kinship families, and helping families access services before a crisis becomes an emergency. Children shouldn’t fall through the cracks because the system responsible for protecting them is overwhelmed.

Health and human services touch us throughout our lives—from ensuring children grow up safe and healthy, to accessing a doctor when we’re sick, to helping our parents and grandparents remain independent. Maine should have a system that works for people at every stage of life and treats every taxpayer dollar as something that must be spent effectively.