Tom’S PRIORITIESHealth Care
One out of every five dollars in our economy is tied to the $4 trillion American health care industry. We’ve made tremendous progress in recent years in covering more Americans with health insurance, though we’ve got more work to do, especially on the rising costs of health care. We need to get soaring costs under control for Hoosier families, and in the U.S. Senate, I’ll work to do just that. It is not right that in the greatest country in the world one unexpected trip to the emergency room, or medical diagnosis can leave a family financially devastated for the rest of their lives.
I believe in the creation of an affordable public option. Millions of people in the US that have excellent employer-provided health insurance, and they shouldn’t have to give up their private insurance. But for those among us with no insurance, or that are underinsured, a public option would not only provide them with the ability to get the care they need; but would lower costs by creating more competition with insurance companies.
And we need to pass a plan to lower the costs of prescription drugs. There’s no reason why Hoosiers pay twice as much for medicine as our neighbors to the north in Canada, or the rest of the world. We’ve seen the power of medicine and what it can do in this pandemic, and the research and innovation that pharmaceutical companies are capable of pursuing to save lives – and we should be grateful. But that doesn’t mean we need to go bankrupt paying for such medicines or find common sense solutions to lower the burden on Hoosier seniors and families.
And we need to do more to support our front line workers – our nurses, EMTs, and hospital staff who have been true American heroes over the last few years. We owe them as a nation.