Issue Position: Ensuring Access to Quality Health Care

Issue Position

As a Nurse Practitioner I understand that everyone needs access to health care. There are two sides to the access coin: insurance coverage to help pay for care and an adequate supply of health care providers to deliver care.

Health insurance allows individuals to seek primary and specialty care in the community, rather than through hospital emergency rooms that by federal law cannot turn away anyone needing care, even when their illness is not an emergency. When people are sick and they have no other options they will go where they know they will be seen. Those of us with health insurance ultimately pay the price with higher insurance premiums to
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offset the costs of this uncompensated care. Our hospitals bear the burden as well with over-crowded ERs and the financial drain of uncompensated care. Expanding health insurance coverage eventually benefits everyone.
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Even for those who have insurance, many areas of our state are labelled medically underserved. Individuals in these communities often forego care until they are very ill because they cannot travel the long distances necessary to receive care. To meet a growing demand for health care and to give health care workers and taxpayers a full return on their investment in health care provider education in our universities, our health care workforce should be utilized to its full capacity. Restrictive laws and regulations that prevent full practice by licensed health care professionals should be repealed.

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