health

Establish comparable compensation (including benefits) across settings for early childhood educators with comparable qualifications, experience, and responsibilities. Focusing only on comparable compensation for those working in pre-K settings will deepen disparities felt by educators working with infants and toddlers, who are disproportionately women of color. Including educators working with infants and toddlers in compensation policies is a fundamental matter of equity.

Incorporate the science of toxic stress and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) into DC state policies and programs. Trauma-informed care and healing-centered approaches can support resilience and help mitigate the effects of toxic stress and ACEs, which affect children of all social groups but disproportionately affect children of marginalized groups.

Promote, and establish DC policies that promote and support multilingualism for all children. This can include funding for early learning dual-language immersion programs, early childhood educator professional development for teaching and supporting emergent bilinguals, and the inclusion of multi/dual language promotion in quality rating and improvement systems.

A city’s greatness is found in the wellbeing of its people.

The Human Life Standard places emotional, physical, financial, and community health at the center of governance. That means expanding healthcare access, expanding mental health supports, supporting seniors and families, and ensuring that every person has the chance not just to survive but to thrive.

Human wellbeing is not optional. It is the mission.

The post it quotes, by @AOC

The average monthly SNAP benefit is $177 a person. The average ACA benefit is up to $550 a person/mo. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. Working people want leaders whose word means something.

With the resident's informed consent, healthcare providers, schools, social services, and other authorized agencies could securely share information when appropriate, reducing paperwork, improving continuity of care, and helping the government provide more personalized services.

Wearable technologies are used voluntarily; they will provide real-time health and wellness information to improve emergency response, preventive healthcare, and long-term public health planning. All personal data must remain protected through HIPAA compliance, strong encryption, independent oversight, and strict privacy safeguards.

Responsibly integrate Artificial Intelligence across public services to create:

DC is at the center of overlapping overdose and homelessness crises. The District ranks among the worst in the country for drug related harm, with opioid overdoses driving preventable deaths, particularly among people experiencing homelessness. Immigrant families face barriers to preventive care, and escalating attacks on reproductive and gender affirming care threaten health, autonomy, and lives.

DC residents deserve a health care system that treats care as a human right and responds with urgency when lives are at stake. That means reliable Medicaid, a fully funded DC Healthcare Alliance, and targeted action to end racial disparities in maternal and infant health.

Residents deserve neighborhood based care with no cost at the point of service, including primary care, reproductive care, gender affirming care, prenatal and postpartum support, mental health, substance use treatment, and long term care. Providers and pharmacies must be reimbursed at rates that allow them to remain open and serve patients where they live.

Oye will also strengthen rent stabilization by reducing the maximum annual increase to the Consumer Price Index, expanding rent control to newer buildings, and funding proactive inspections to ensure housing is safe, accessible, and habitable.

DC is facing a public health crisis driven by policy failure, budget choices, and deep racial inequities. Federal threats to Medicaid and SNAP are colliding with local decisions that eliminated the DC Healthcare Alliance for 25,000 residents and cut TANF cash assistance for 14,000 families with children. This is an issue of dignity and lack of Home Rule.

DC is also failing mothers and babies. Black women face far higher rates of preterm birth and maternal mortality, and recent reports give DC a failing grade for outcomes for moms and infants. These outcomes reflect delayed care, closed clinics, understaffed hospitals, and systems that fail to respond when Black women raise concerns.

…food is harder to find and harder to afford. Wards 7 and 8 face some of the highest rates of food insecurity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and shortened life expectancy in the District. Communities are saturated with junk food that drives chronic disease, while grocery access, nutrition education, and reliable transportation to healthy food remain uneven. Food policy has focused too narrowly on attracting grocery stores without addressing affordability, education, or the systems that shape what people can realistically buy and eat. The result is preventable illness instead of prevention.

DC residents deserve healthy, affordable food in every ward. That includes full service grocery stores, small footprint markets, cooperatives, and community based food systems that make fresh food the default choice. Residents deserve practical, culturally responsive nutrition education delivered through trusted systems like health care providers, home visiting programs, and schools. Families deserve food environments that reduce diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. Food policy should support health and dignity, not profit driven systems that harm communities.

As a pharmacist and former ANC Commissioner in Ward 8, Oye has seen how food access and food quality directly affect health outcomes. He will fight for a public health centered food system that prevents chronic disease and expands real access to healthy food.

Residents deserve neighborhood based care with no cost at the point of service, including primary care, reproductive care, gender affirming care, prenatal and postpartum support, mental health, substance use treatment, and long term care. Providers and pharmacies must be reimbursed at rates that allow them to remain open and serve patients where they live.

DC must confront overdoses with a true public health approach centered on harm reduction, treatment access, housing stability, and continuity of care. Health care must be accessible regardless of income, immigration status, gender identity, or zip code.

Oye Fights ForAs a pharmacist and public health professional, Oye has seen how gaps in coverage, unaffordable prescriptions, and unstable access to care push families into crisis. As a former ANC Commissioner in Ward 8, he witnessed how underinvestment and clinic closures harm Black families, seniors, immigrants, and people experiencing homelessness.

Low Medicaid reimbursement rates continue to strain providers and limit access to care, especially East of the River. Residents travel farther for care or go without it, while medical debt grows. Pharmacy benefit managers inflate drug prices, driving up costs for patients across the District.

DC is at the center of overlapping overdose and homelessness crises. The District ranks among the worst in the country for drug related harm, with opioid overdoses driving preventable deaths, particularly among people experiencing homelessness. Immigrant families face barriers to preventive care, and escalating attacks on reproductive and gender affirming care threaten health, autonomy, and lives.

DC residents deserve a health care system that treats care as a human right and responds with urgency when lives are at stake. That means reliable Medicaid, a fully funded DC Healthcare Alliance, and targeted action to end racial disparities in maternal and infant health.

DC is also failing mothers and babies. Black women face far higher rates of preterm birth and maternal mortality, and recent reports give DC a failing grade for outcomes for moms and infants. These outcomes reflect delayed care, closed clinics, understaffed hospitals, and systems that fail to respond when Black women raise concerns.

Low Medicaid reimbursement rates continue to strain providers and limit access to care, especially East of the River. Residents travel farther for care or go without it, while medical debt grows. Pharmacy benefit managers inflate drug prices, driving up costs for patients across the District.

DC is at the center of overlapping overdose and homelessness crises. The District ranks among the worst in the country for drug related harm, with opioid overdoses driving preventable deaths, particularly among people experiencing homelessness. Immigrant families face barriers to preventive care, and escalating attacks on reproductive and gender affirming care threaten health, autonomy, and lives.

DC is facing a public health crisis driven by policy failure, budget choices, and deep racial inequities. Federal threats to Medicaid and SNAP are colliding with local decisions that eliminated the DC Healthcare Alliance for 25,000 residents and cut TANF cash assistance for 14,000 families with children. This is an issue of dignity and lack of Home Rule.

DC is also failing mothers and babies. Black women face far higher rates of preterm birth and maternal mortality, and recent reports give DC a failing grade for outcomes for moms and infants. These outcomes reflect delayed care, closed clinics, understaffed hospitals, and systems that fail to respond when Black women raise concerns.

Low Medicaid reimbursement rates continue to strain providers and limit access to care, especially East of the River. Residents travel farther for care or go without it, while medical debt grows. Pharmacy benefit managers inflate drug prices, driving up costs for patients across the District.

DC also has a troubling track record of oversight failures and questionable contracting. From sole source contracts to opaque development subsidies, Opportunity Zones, Tax Increment Financing, and no bid agreements have too often benefited developers and insiders without clear evidence that low income and working class residents are seeing real gains. Repeated ethics and corruption scandals involving senior officials and Council leadership have reinforced the perception that government protects insiders first.

The COVID response exposed the human cost of this dysfunction. Slow, fragmented action and poor coordination led to deadly failures at city run facilities and delayed responses in the hardest hit Black communities. When government is not built around serving people in normal times, it collapses in moments of crisis.

DC residents deserve a government where equity is enforced, not optional. Laws like the REACH Act should shape decisions from the very beginning, with clear standards, timelines, and public reporting. Equity must be measurable, visible, and tied to outcomes, not reduced to checkboxes or after the fact justifications.

They pushed me to get educated, to become a scientist, and to give back to my community. I graduated as the only Black man in my doctoral program, so when I moved to DC, I started volunteering in classrooms. When I teach kids how to do science experiments — when they put on lab coats and call each other “Doctor” — they realize the potential they’ve got isn’t limited by their skin color, the zip code they live in, or how hard it is for other people to pronounce their name.

With a name like mine, I never expected to be in politics, but I take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way. As your U.S. Representative, I’ve worked to get drugs off the streets, helped returning citizens get good paying union jobs, and secured access to the Covid vaccine for thousands of Washingtonians (and even vaccinated some patients myself).

I don’t have a vote in Congress, but I don’t sit around. When I notice a problem, I don’t wait for somebody else to fix it — I build the solution.

Finally, Oye will fight for statehood and defend home rule because DC cannot be truly safe when residents live under federal interference, where unaccountable agents can operate in our communities without democratic control.

DC seniors, the foundation of our communities, are under pressure from every direction. Federal attacks under Trump and his allies threaten Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid through proposed budget cuts, privatization schemes, and weakened consumer protections. Prescription drug costs remain too high, while scams and fraud targeting older adults grow more aggressive and sophisticated. Locally, proposed cuts to the Department of Aging and Community Living put meals, transportation, home care, caregiver support, and senior wellness programs at risk. Rising property taxes, housing costs, and utility bills are forcing seniors out of the neighborhoods they built. Too many older adults, especially Black seniors east of the Anacostia River, face food insecurity, limited health access, unreliable transportation, isolation, and displacement when they should be aging with dignity, stability, and respect.

DC seniors deserve to age in place safely, affordably, and in community. They deserve secure Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits protected from federal raids and privatization. Seniors should be able to afford their medications, keep their homes, access nutritious food, and rely on accessible transportation, safe sidewalks, and reliable paratransit to stay connected to care and community life. They deserve strong home and community based services so they are not forced into institutions, as well as support for family and paid caregivers. Seniors deserve protection from scams and…

Oye will oppose encampment sweeps and criminalization that destabilize people and undermine housing efforts. He will stop the pipeline into homelessness by fully funding ERAP, pairing it with a right to counsel, protecting renters during temporary crises, raising wages, expanding social housing, and supporting expungement and reentry so people can stabilize.

Too many DC residents live in neighborhoods where highly processed food is cheap and abundant while fresh, healthy food is harder to find and harder to afford. Wards 7 and 8 face some of the highest rates of food insecurity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and shortened life expectancy in the District. Communities are saturated with junk food that drives chronic disease, while grocery access, nutrition education, and reliable transportation to healthy food remain uneven. Food policy has focused too narrowly on attracting grocery stores without addressing affordability, education, or the systems that shape what people can realistically buy and eat. The result is preventable illness instead of prevention.

DC residents deserve healthy, affordable food in every ward. That includes full service grocery stores, small footprint markets, cooperatives, and community based food systems that make fresh food the default choice. Residents deserve practical, culturally responsive nutrition education delivered through trusted systems like health care providers, home visiting programs, and schools. Families deserve food environments that reduce diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. Food policy should support health and dignity, not profit driven systems that harm communities.

…scams and fraud targeting older adults grow more aggressive and sophisticated. Locally, proposed cuts to the Department of Aging and Community Living put meals, transportation, home care, caregiver support, and senior wellness programs at risk. Rising property taxes, housing costs, and utility bills are forcing seniors out of the neighborhoods they built. Too many older adults, especially Black seniors east of the Anacostia River, face food insecurity, limited health access, unreliable transportation, isolation, and displacement when they should be aging with dignity, stability, and respect.

DC seniors deserve to age in place safely, affordably, and in community. They deserve secure Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits protected from federal raids and privatization. Seniors should be able to afford their medications, keep their homes, access nutritious food, and rely on accessible transportation, safe sidewalks, and reliable paratransit to stay connected to care and community life. They deserve strong home and community based services so they are not forced into institutions, as well as support for family and paid caregivers. Seniors deserve protection from scams and financial exploitation, clear help navigating benefits and taxes, and relief from rising property taxes and utility costs. Above all, DC seniors deserve policies that support independence, reduce isolation, and allow them to remain active and respected members of their communities for as long as they choose.

As a pharmacist and DC’s elected U.S. Representative, Oye understands how federal decisions shape seniors’ health, finances, and daily lives, and how those impacts are felt most sharply in neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. He will fight to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from federal cuts and privatization, and will work to shield DC residents from harmful federal actions whenever possible. Oye will fully fund the Department of Aging and Community Living, restore and expand meals, transportation, home care, caregiver support, and senior wellness programs, and…

The post it quotes, by @tweetelissa

DC Residents & Small Businesses: @DCDISB is holding a virtual hearing on 8/25 at 5:30 PM to review proposed 2027 health insurance rates for individual & small group plans in @DCHealthLink. Make your voice heard if you think it is too expensive!