Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton talked about rising health care costs and economic strain facing Ohioans at a public roundtable Thursday in Bond Hill.
Acton’s appearance comes as affordability and health care emerge as central issues in Ohio’s gubernatorial race. A leading Democratic candidate, she is using events like the Bond Hill roundtable to outline policy proposals while contrasting her approach with that of her Republican opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, who has emphasized tax cuts and reducing government spending.
Thursday’s roundtable at Brunch De Lux included seven panelists.
Acton said that listening to the public to understand hardships and areas for improvement is a vital step in developing policy proposals.
“It helped me make my decision to even do this,” she told CityBeat after the roundtable. “I had to feel like I could do something about it, and I had to see it.”
Financial self-sustainability and healthcare were central to the discussion on Thursday.
Samuel Smith is a school district bus driver who said he struggles to make ends meet despite having a “good-paying job.” He said he moonlights on weekends, playing in a band called “Saturday’s Children.”
“I work about 35 hours a week, making nearly $30 an hour, and I’m still twisting and turning in ways to try to make these next developmental steps as a young adult,” he said. “I just don’t see the sustainability.”
He said his major expenses, including union dues, health insurance costs, and $25,000 in medical debt, have kept him from reaching financial stability.
Acton told him that he is not alone and that she has heard similar concerns from others around the state.
“It’s harder than it has been,” Acton said. She added that she wants to work with the public as governor to address these problems.
“My promise is that I’ll be with you every step of the way,” she said. “I’ll put the hard cards on the table. We will talk. I’ll come alongside you and fight every day to make sure the right people are in the right seats. We’re all working together to solve problems.”
Another panelist, Paul McMillon, owner of Brunch De Lux, said he was also concerned with healthcare prices.
“I was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis,” he told Acton.
He said he believed his company’s health insurance would cover his medical costs, but the insurance company later told him it wouldn’t because he had shown symptoms of arthritis five years earlier.
“That changes everything,” he said. “Because just one treatment may be $10,000 versus the insurance coverage.”
He asked the candidate about a plan for meaningful, long-term community insurance.
Acton responded empathetically and said it was a travesty that Americans spend twice as much as other countries on medical care.
“No matter how much money you make, it’s getting harder and harder to get good health care and not be fighting it the entire time,” she said. “That’s why in our affordability rollout, we’re working on some of the issues that we can grab right away.”
Her campaign website outlines an “ActON” plan describing how she wants to help lower medical costs.
“We want those out-of-pocket [payments] to be counting toward your deductible if you’re having to do stuff,” she said.
Acton also pointed to a plan to help Ohioans get significant discounts on key drugs they need. She said this plan would work similarly to Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, which significantly lowers drug prices.
“We’ve looked into it deeply, and think we can have a good model that would help Ohio immediately,” she said.
Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director under Gov. Mike DeWine, said lowering medical care costs is a priority.
“This is something that is a big contrast between me and my opponent,” Acton said. “He thinks these programs are mistakes, but there we have rural hospitals on the verge of collapse. So we have a lot to do in healthcare. We have to leverage the buying power of the state.”
Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati native and St. Xavier High School graduate, has also said lowering costs is central to his campaign.
“We need to bring down those health care bills. And I think one of the ways to do it is to think about how we actually put money in the pockets of Ohioans,” Ramaswamy said on Ideastream’s “The Sound of Ideas” in December.