Representative Ritchie Torres is a fighter from the Bronx who has spent his entire life working for the community he calls home. Like many people in the South Bronx, poverty and struggle have never been abstractions to him, and he governs from a place of lived experience.
Ritchie’s mother single-handedly raised him, his twin brother, and his sister in a public-housing project. She paid the bills working minimum-wage jobs, which in the 1990s paid $4.25 an hour. While Ritchie grew up with mold, lead, leaks, and no reliable heat or hot water in the winter, he watched the government spend over $100 million dollars to build a golf course across the street for Donald Trump. In 2013, at the age of 25, Ritchie became New York City’s youngest elected official and the first openly L.G.B.T.Q. person elected to office in the Bronx.
Protecting Medicare is one of my highest priorities in Congress. Medicare serves our seniors and most vulnerable Americans, and Republicans have tried to gut this essential lifeline for decades. We need to empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which will help make essential prescription drugs affordable to all Americans.
I’m in favor of implementing a universal healthcare program, such as Medicare for All. This plan would not only expand Medicaid to all Americans, but it would also enhance Medicare coverage by adding dental, vision, prescription drugs, women’s reproductive health services, maternity and newborn care, long term services and more.
Proper health care shouldn’t just be limited to physical health. Throughout my life, I have struggled with my own mental health – and without proper treatment, I wouldn’t be alive today. I want for my constituents, and for every American, the same access to mental health treatment that transformed my life and sent me on a trajectory from dropping out of college at my lowest point to the United States Congress today. I’m advocating tirelessly for any measure that will guarantee mental health care access to anyone who needs it.