Ohio Lt. Governor candidate Betty Sutton has been on the campaign stump talking about health care and getting more youth involvement in our election process as she spoke recently spoke with iHeart Media's Harry Wright.
She says the ticket of Richard Cordray/Betty Sutton are focused on increasing health-care reliability while decreasing costs. They also pledge to maintain protection for people with preexisting conditions. Sutton said her and Cordray also would take on the “greedy middlemen” in healthcare, such as pharmacy benefit managers, “who don’t really add value to the system, but can cause the costs to go up.”
On education, Sutton says they want to make schools the centers of their communities, and focus more spending on public schools rather than charter schools, beginning with early childhood education. And ultimately, Sutton said, she and Cordray want different forms of education to expand economic opportunities for all Ohioans.
Sutton also said the Cordray team wants to change the way Ohio is fighting the opioid crisis. The Democratic campaign has previously expressed its support for state Issue 1, which Sutton called “a possible way forward” in fighting the epidemic, while also calling it an “imperfect” proposal.
Many judges and law enforcement officials in the state are opposed to Issue 1.
Sutton said she and Cordray would confront Ohio’s addiction problem in part by restoring local government funds, which have been cut under Republican Gov. John Kasich. Betty Sutton said if elected, the Cordray/Sutton team would declare a state of emergency to free up more resources to combat the opiate crisis, work with the legislature for criminal justice reform and make sure communities have treatment and rehabilitation services locally.