Chippewa Valley Healthcare Providers Share Struggles with Cooke

Third Congressional District candidate Rebecca Cooke met with Chippewa Valley healthcare providers this week as part of a campaign tour.

About a dozen providers took part in the roundtable discussion, sharing the challenges they’re facing with inadequate access to healthcare services following the HSHS and Prevea closures and rising costs amid federal policy changes. Following the roundtable, Cooke highlighted the importance of hearing input from all aspects of the healthcare field to pursue realistic improvements.

“I want to hear from providers, I want to hear from hospital administrators, I want to hear from patients about their healthcare outcomes and how we can improve them,” she said. “The solution isn’t going to come from any one of those groups, it’s going to be about working together. I also think that there’s no surefire answer to solving the healthcare crisis that we have in this country from a cost perspective but also from an access perspective, and that we’ve got to work, I think, to create some incremental change.”

In addition to improving healthcare access and affordability for patients Cooke also highlighted the need to recruit more talented healthcare workers to the Chippewa Valley, ensuring residents can receive the best care possible.

“One of the things that I was grateful that was brought up today was just what our talent pipeline looks like, especially in rural communities,” she said. “I think that that’s something we have to be thinking about. How do we prepare our next generation, our next healthcare workforce, thinking from a holistic perspective of nurses and CNAs, recruiting providers to come back home to the communities that they grew up in here in Wisconsin to practice.”

Cooke also discussed the impact of tariffs and supply chain issues with local small business leaders during other campaign visits throughout the Chippewa Valley this week. She will face off with former Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge and Rodney Rave in the Democratic Primary in August. The winner will seek to unseat incumbent Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden in the November midterm election.