The Problem
The American healthcare system is failing ordinary people — and the numbers prove it:
27M
Americans have no health insurance
100M
Americans carry a combined $220 billion in medical debt
500K
households file for medical bankruptcy every year
80%
of U.S. counties are healthcare deserts
67%
of Americans say prescription drug costs are a serious financial burden
The United States ranks last among high-income nations in healthcare outcomes. Meanwhile, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations are posting record profits.
This is not a healthcare system. It is a profit system — and ordinary Americans are paying the price with their health, their savings, and their lives.
Maria’s Vision
Maria believes that healthcare is not a privilege for the wealthy — it is a basic human right and a foundation of a strong, productive society. She is committed to an honest, bipartisan, and broad-ranging conversation about how we get from where we are today to a system that works for everyone.
There is no single magic solution. The road to universal coverage will require tackling the problem from multiple directions at once — lowering costs, expanding access, breaking up monopolies, and building political will that special interests have blocked for decades.
Maria is not interested in scoring political points on healthcare. She is interested in fixing it.
What Maria Will Fight For
1. Lower the Medicare Eligibility Age
Maria will work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to lower the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 62 — matching the earliest age a person can receive Social Security benefits. This closes a critical gap for older workers who are between jobs, self-employed, or simply can’t afford private insurance in their early 60s.
2. Break Up Healthcare Monopolies
One of the least-talked-about drivers of healthcare costs is consolidation. Today, a single corporation can own your insurance company, your pharmacy, your doctor’s office, and your pharmacy benefit manager — all under one profit-driven roof. This kills competition, drives up prices, and puts corporate shareholders ahead of patients. Maria supports the Break Up Big Medicine Act of 2026, which would rein in these monopolistic structures and restore competition to the healthcare marketplace.
3. Take on Pharmaceutical Pricing
Americans pay dramatically more for prescription drugs than people in any other high-income country — for the exact same medications. Maria supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, capping out-of-pocket costs for insulin and other life-sustaining medications, and cracking down on price-gouging practices that put life-saving drugs out of reach for working families.
4. Expand Access in Healthcare Deserts
With 80% of U.S. counties classified as healthcare deserts, rural and underserved communities — including parts of Ohio’s 14th — face a crisis of access to healthcare. Maria will fight for expanded funding for community health centers, rural hospital support, and telehealth infrastructure so that geography doesn’t determine whether you can see a doctor.
5. Address the Medical Debt Crisis
Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Maria supports stronger protections against unfair medical billing, greater hospital price transparency, and real relief options for families already overwhelmed by medical debt.
6. The Long Road: Universal Coverage
Maria believes the United States must ultimately join every other high-income nation in guaranteeing universal healthcare. She knows this won’t happen overnight — it will require building bipartisan consensus, reducing the influence of special interests in Congress, and having honest conversations about what a sustainable, universal system looks like. She is committed to that work for the long haul, not just for the next election cycle.
Why Is This So Hard?
Maria will tell you the truth: the lack of progress on healthcare isn’t simply about greed. Yes, insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations spend billions lobbying Congress to protect their bottom lines — and that’s a real problem. But the barriers run deeper than that.
There’s fear. Fear of losing the coverage you have, however imperfect. Fear that reform means someone else gets something for free. There’s a deep distrust of the government’s ability to get anything right, and an erosion of the belief that we’re all in this together. These fears are understandable — and the people who benefit from the status quo know exactly how to stoke them.
It’s also worth saying: not every actor in our healthcare system is driven by profit. Many hospitals — nonprofit institutions in communities like ours — are simply trying to keep their doors open, care for their patients, and do important research. The problem isn’t one villain. It’s a system that has grown so complicated, so entrenched, and so politically charged that meaningful change feels impossible.
Maria believes it isn’t. But she also knows that campaign finance reform and healthcare reform go hand in hand. When corporations have outsized influence over our democracy, the people’s priorities come last.
That’s why Maria refuses corporate PAC money. She will accept support from unions and community organizations that stand with working families — because she answers to the people of Ohio’s 14th District, not to the healthcare industry.
A Note from Maria
“I’ve talked to people all across the 14th district — in wealthy neighborhoods and struggling ones — and the anxiety about healthcare is everywhere. Every time I ask people what keeps them up at night, the answer is almost always the same: healthcare. Not in the abstract — but the real, daily weight of it. Thousands of dollars for an emergency room visit. An insurance company denying a medication your doctor prescribed. Premiums that go up every year while your coverage gets thinner. I’ve heard it everywhere, from Lake to Trumbull, Portage to Ashtabula, Geauga to Mahoning. People skipping medications, thinking twice about going to the urgent care, planning care based on deductibles. Small business owners who want to do right by their employees but simply can’t. This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a human one. Parents are skipping their own checkups to pay for their kids’. Small business owners can’t afford to offer coverage to good employees. This isn’t a partisan issue. This is a human issue. And people deserve better.”