Health Care: Wenda Sheard’s Positions

Affordability

• Rising health care costs are a major problem. Ohio needs to make health care affordable for all.
• Sheard will work to repeal laws that take health care away from hundreds of thousands of people. 
• It is unfair to tax people so heavily that they cannot afford health insurance. Large corporations and billionaires should pay more in taxes.
• Sheard will work to increase transparency and accountability in health care.
• She will examine whether a universal health care system, like those in other developed countries, could work in Ohio.
• Some employers pay wages so low that workers must depend on the government for health care.

Medicaid, SNAP, and Rural Hospitals

• Medicaid is government health insurance for people with low incomes. SNAP is the food assistance program. Cuts to these programs have gone too far and will go further, given the federal health insurance cuts scheduled to take effect in January 2027.
• Rural hospitals are at risk of closing because the people they serve lack the insurance needed to pay the bills. There should be greater support for rural clinics.
• Cuts have gone too far when children are going hungry. Government should be there for the people.

Access to Care

• Sheard’s health care goals include attracting more doctors, better access to specialists, and support for rural clinics.
• District 94 has inadequate access to health care, with long waits to see medical specialists.
• Many people must drive out of their area for care and that some wait up to three months to see a specialist. She said Ohio needs more doctors and more available appointments.
• About half of Ohio’s counties have no OB-GYN (a doctor who specializes in women’s health and childbirth). Sheard will work to attract obstetricians to rural parts of the state.

Women’s and Reproductive Health

• Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio has endorsed Sheard.
• She supports the 2023 Ohio constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights. She worked to collect signatures and lobby for it.
• Sheard’s goal is to make abortion as rare as possible by giving women easy access to effective birth control, good medical care, and affordable child care. 
• Sheard organized a community event to explain the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision (Dobbs) within days of it being issued.
• She helped make free Plan B emergency contraception kits available for Ohio University students and community members while Ohio’s six-week abortion ban was in effect.
• Sheard will improve access to birth control, lift families out of poverty, and bring obstetricians to rural areas. 

Safety and Support for Survivors

Sheard volunteered for four years as a counselor with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. She now works with the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, where she leads attorney panel meetings, helps younger lawyers who represent survivors, and counsels survivors.