Health care
An outspoken advocate of single-payer, government-run universal health care since her days as a state legislator, Baldwin introduced the Health Security for All Americans Act, which would have required states to provide such a system, in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005. The bill died each time it was introduced without a House vote.
Baldwin has said that she "believes strongly that a single-payer health system is the best way to comprehensively and fairly reform our health care system." In 2009, she voted for the version of health-care reform that included a public option, a government-run health-care plan that would have competed with private insurers, but only the House passed that version. She ultimately voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which became law in 2010. Baldwin is credited with writing the ACA provision that allows Americans to stay on their parents' health insurance until age 26. She said she hoped a public option in the ACA would lead to a single-payer system. The first version of the ACA Baldwin voted for included a public option, but the final version did not.
In 2009, Baldwin introduced the Ending LGBT Health Disparities Act (ELHDA), which sought to advance LGBTQ health priorities by promoting research, cultural competency, and non-discrimination policies. The bill did not pass.
Baldwin was one of five Democratic senators to sign a letter to President Trump in 2017 warning that failure "to take immediate action to oppose the lawsuit or direct House Republicans to forgo this effort will increase instability in the insurance market, as insurers may choose not to participate in the marketplace in 2018" and that they remained concerned that his administration "has still not provided certainty to insurers and consumers that you will protect the cost-sharing subsidies provided under the law."
Also in 2017, Baldwin wrote an op-ed titled "Why I support Medicare for all and other efforts to expand health coverage." In 2018 she was one of ten senators to sponsor the Choose Medicare Act, an expanded public option for health insurance that also increased Obamacare subsidies and rendered people with higher incomes eligible for its assistance.
During the 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown, Baldwin was one of 34 senators to sign a letter to Commissioner of Food and Drugs Scott Gottlieb recognizing the FDA's efforts to address the shutdown's effect on public health and employees while remaining alarmed "that the continued shutdown will result in increasingly harmful effects on the agency's employees and the safety and security of the nation's food and medical products."
In 2019, Baldwin was one of 11 senators to sign a letter to insulin manufactures Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about their increased insulin prices depriving patients of "access to the life-saving medications they need". She was one of eight senators to cosponsor the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA), a bill intended to strengthen training for new and existing physicians, people who teach palliative care, and other providers on the palliative care team that grants patients and their families a voice in their care and treatment goals. In 2022, Baldwin voted with Democrats to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which capped the cost of insulin for seniors on Medicare at $35 a month. The act also allowed Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.
