Hi folks! Welcome back to Tammy Tuesdays, our weekly update email on Tammy’s work and the big fights she’s taking on for Wisconsin families.
Tammy knows that there’s more that unites us than divides us. She understands that Wisconsin’s working families all want good-paying jobs, affordable healthcare, and the same freedoms their parents and grandparents had.
Read below for highlights of what Tammy worked on this week:
Supporting Our Military
Tammy is proud of our service members who sacrifice so much to keep our country safe and free. She knows that in order to keep our military strong, we have to provide all the resources and support that we can to ensure readiness for action.
Last week, Tammy visited Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin to highlight her work to secure nearly $70 million to help fund a new housing facilities project that will house up to 1,600 troops and 320 officers. Given Fort McCoy’s long history of training and mobilizing American troops, this investment will strengthen our national security and ensure our service members have the best facilities possible to conduct training.
Investing in Wisconsin’s Rural Communities
Wisconsin is a proud rural state. We depend on our rural communities who do so much to keep our agricultural industries going strong and give our state its character and traditions. That’s why Tammy is committed to investing in our rural communities and ensuring that they have the tools and resources needed to thrive for generations to come.
After helping establish the Institute for Rural Partnerships at UW-Madison last year, Tammy was proud to announce some of the new projects the institute is working on. At a stop at the Marshfield Agricultural Research station in Stratford, Tammy met with researchers to discuss how the institute is utilizing $6 million in federal funding to develop projects focused on health care, rural livability and mental health challenges in our rural communities. All of these projects are aimed at supporting the specific needs of rural Wisconsinites and ensuring a stronger, brighter future for these communities.
Combating the Opioid Epidemic
Across our state, the opioid, fentanyl, and heroin epidemic has claimed far too many lives, affected countless families, and devastated entire communities. The effects of this epidemic hit close to home for Tammy, whose mother struggled with addiction to prescription drugs. The opioid, fentanyl, and heroin epidemic isn’t a partisan issue – it’s life or death – and Tammy is committed to making sure that no Wisconsin family has to face this epidemic alone.
On Monday, Tammy met with local leaders in Columbia County to tour a new substance abuse and mental health recovery center. Tammy was proud to see all the work that this center is doing to support the communities in the area and ensure they have the resources necessary to combat this epidemic. From increasing access to overdose reversal drugs to ensuring our Customs and Border Protection agents have the resources to detect and confiscate illegal fentanyl before it enters our country, Tammy is going to be at the forefront of this fight because no Wisconsin family should have to face this epidemic alone.
Standing Up for Our Freedoms
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, Wisconsinites have been living under an 1849 abortion ban, which bans abortions even in cases of rape and incest, and can criminally prosecute doctors for providing life saving care. Tammy is standing shoulder to shoulder with Wisconsinites in the fight to take back our rights.
Last week, Tammy met with families in the La Crosse area to talk about the work she’s been doing in the Senate to restore our rights back here at home. From spearheading her Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify the right to choose into federal law, to working to pass legislation that enshrines the right to birth control access and protects a woman’s right to travel for reproductive care, Tammy is working harder than ever to help Wisconsinites get the reproductive health care they need.
Lowering Prescription Drug Costs
Tammy believes that every single Wisconsinite deserves affordable health care. When she heard from Wisconsinites that they were having to ration life saving prescription drugs, or sacrifice them completely in order to pay their bills and groceries, Tammy took action. Last year, she took on Big Pharma and forced them to lower drug prices and cap insulin costs at $35 a month for our seniors. And right now, she’s working on bipartisan legislation that holds Big Pharma accountable for their price gouging and makes prescription drug pricing more transparent.
On Wednesday, Tammy talked about this work at a visit to the Gundersen Pharmacy in Onalaska for the “Protect Our Care Bus Tour,” which is traveling across the country to highlight recent federal work to lower costs and make health care more affordable. Tammy knows that while we’ve done a lot to make prescription drugs more affordable, there’s still more work to be done. And she’s going to keep fighting until every Wisconsinite has access to the affordable health care they expect and deserve.
Boosting Our Hospice and Palliative Care Workforce
Tammy knows that if we want to make health care affordable and accessible, we need to make sure we’re investing in our health care systems. Right now, our country is facing health care workforce shortages, and we are seeing this especially in our hospice and palliative care services. Tammy understands how important high-quality palliative and hospice care is for our loved ones who are fighting serious illnesses.
Right now, Tammy is working hard to pass the bipartisan Palliative Care and Hospice Education Training Act, which will increase the palliative care and hospice workforce and invest in training, education, and research opportunities. Tammy is committed to making sure that every single American across the country has access to the best-quality health care available and that’s why she is going to keep working hard to support our health care systems to meet their staffing and resource needs.
