Republicans swept the state House seats in the Upper Peninsula back in 2024 — including the often Democratic stronghold of Marquette. In this year's Midterm Election, Anna Aho Rink flipped that seat back to blue.
Rink is a physician assistant who once worked at the only Planned Parenthood clinic in the U.P. The clinic has since closed. Rink will represent Michigan's 109th House district, which includes Marquette, Ishpeming, Munising, Negaunee, and Norway.
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, Rink spoke with Stateside's April Baer about what the win means for her region.
Scroll up to listen to a recording of the interview, or read the transcript below:
April Baer: Do you mind telling us a little bit about how you came to get into politics?
Anna Aho Rink: I've been a physician assistant for over 20 years. Nearly 17 of those years was working at the Planned Parenthood office in my hometown of Marquette, Michigan. That had been really a dream job caring for my community, and not just my community. There is such a lack of reproductive health care resources throughout the entire Upper Peninsula, and even into northern Wisconsin. I cared for patients from all over this whole giant landmass. And in April of 2025, due to Trump budget cuts to Medicaid reimbursement, Title X funding for Planned Parenthood offices, my office was forced to close. And just like that, we lost significant access to care. Really, really necessary and life-saving care here in the U.P..
I had already been struggling and hustling, trying to make connections for people, and get them the healthcare services they needed in a rural area, but as well as in a situation where healthcare is becoming increasingly expensive and harder to access, and people's insurance plans are covering less and less. And really, when my office closed, that was kind of the last straw. I was like, "Okay, how much can I continue to hustle from the ground level, and continue to see folks have their rug swept out from underneath them, and people that care trying to pick up the pieces repeatedly, when truly it is policy being made in Lansing and Washington that is not working for us."
AB: I just wonder if you have any observations for us about how reproductive care has changed in the U.P.? You mentioned the fact that there are big cuts to Medicaid that go far beyond reproductive care. What does health care access look like in your community right now?
AAR: It's a struggle across the Upper Peninsula for folks to access the care they need. And we are short on providers. Our rural hospital systems are struggling to keep their doors open. And every day people wonder, "Hey, will I still be able to stay with this provider? Or will I be forced to travel hours to see someone to get the care that I need?"
But especially with regard to reproductive health care, when my office closed, immediately the community I work in or live in rallied and created a new system, reproductive health resources for the Upper Peninsula. And it is a nonprofit organization that helps to connect people with providers that they can see, resources in terms of like monetary funds that they can access to get care, who safely can provide reproductive health care around the Upper Peninsula. So people know where to access, places to go, since they don't have that kind of central hub that we had before. But certainly having policy at the state level to help facilitate additional care and resources, including mental health care, family medicine across the board, so all people's needs can be met — that is important work that needs to be done. And again, we've seen so much support on the local level, but we need support at the state and federal levels as well in order to make sure our neighbors are being cared for the way they deserve.
AB: Access to health care in the U.P. is not a new issue. It's something that a lot of voters have grappled with over a long time. I was curious about what other issues, as you were out on the campaign trail, what kinds of issues people talked to you about that you think really influenced the vote this year?
AAR: First and foremost, affordability. Cost of gas, cost of food, housing prices, rent, mortgages, property taxes — all the things that we're doing to just kind of make it day to day. And it was interesting as the campaign progressed on over the course of the summer, I had a lot of people saying, "Oh, we are barely keeping our heads above water. We are really, really struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month." And within the past few weeks, I have spoken to more and more people that have said, "We're really just straight up underwater now. We're not able to pay all of our bills. We didn't make our mortgage payment this month. We've been rationing medications for six months already." The fact that that is the prevailing message that I've heard over and over again really highlights how much people are struggling here, and certainly was reflected in the election results that we saw.
AB: What is the first thing that you think you want to take on when you get to Lansing? What's at the top of your to do list?
AAR: So there are some energy bills and pension bills that have kind of been left by the wayside that really have folks hurting specifically in my district and have left this little era of uncertainty around those occupations and our energy prices. And so getting those shored up, and dealt with, and out of the way is going to be, I think, huge and has to be top of mind for folks. Putting in caps on prescription drugs such as insulin, and inhalers, emergency medications, life saving medications. That is really crucial. The number of people I've spoken with over the past few months knocking doors that are rationing their insulin, people that have straight up gone without all of their inhalers for their COPD and are really, really struggling because their insurance isn't covering them. That is absolutely unacceptable. We need to do better. And so those things are top of mind.
And then, you know, healthcare is my background. And so really working to make sure we maintain access for our rural communities. We need to prioritize that, and we need to make sure that people have insurance and the support that they need in order to be able to pay for that access.
AB: Anna, you'll be coming to Lansing as the only U.P. House member who's a Democrat. Are there some issues that you think you could find common ground on with some other folks who may be from other parts of the region that you think you might be able to make an impact on?
AAR: 100%. I mean, the thing that is special about Yoopers is that, first and foremost, we care about other Yoopers. And so that is such an easy starting point to find common ground on. All of us know how much people are struggling to pay their bills right now. And so it will be, I think, a really, really great starting point to capture, you know, how can we do the best for our areas? We know that there is a lot of need around emergency services - rural emergency services - here. And so I'm looking forward to partnering with other lawmakers in the U.P. to work on policy changes for that, to help support our rural communities.
AB: I want to come back around to something that you mentioned earlier, and that's that a significant portion of the pressure on health care costs as we experience them in Michigan, has to do with things happening within the federal government: cuts to Medicaid, different kind of changes in policies that affect how the state structures its piece of the health care system. What reason do we have to think that what the composition of Lansing looks like might make a difference in how the federal government addresses these kinds of issues in ways that that might change things?
AAR: Well, as we experience more and more states having to sort of take things into their own hands, so to speak, to restructure their health care systems, and we see states kind of working together to collaborate and work to create health care systems that actually work for the people that live here, there is going to be ever-increasing pressure on Washington to take care of the whole country. But in the meantime, there is not time to wait. We cannot wait for them. We cannot wait for their policy. We need action now. We need to take care of our people now. We have to figure it out.
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Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of this interview near the top of this page.
