Rep. Prusak received her bachelor of science in nursing from Northeastern University in Boston, where she was born and raised, and her master's in nursing from the birthplace of nurse midwifery in our country, Frontier Nursing Service. Rep. Prusak has over 20 years invested in the world of nursing across a multitude of settings including the last 12 years as a family nurse practitioner. She currently works for Housecall Providers, where she provides primary care, palliative care and hospice care to the homebound and chronically ill members of her community. Prior to this, she was an ambassador for the National Health Service Corps, where she was dedicated to serving families in rural areas of the country with limited access to care.

Rachel serves as vice chair of the Healthcare Committee and as a member of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means on Transportation and Economic Development. She also serves as a member of the Task Force on the Resolution of Adverse Healthcare Incidents, where she brings her public health lens to the issues at hand. She is the chair of the Access To Primary Care Work Group, which will develop a set of policy considerations for the legislature in its effort to achieve universal access to an adequate level of high-quality health care at an affordable cost. She is committed to addressing the barriers to our healthcare system and won’t stop until it is accessible to all. 

In 2018 she was outraged by politicians who tried to eliminate funding for the health care of more than a million Oregonians, so she fought to protect that health care, ran for office and won her first race. In her first session, she secured funding for Medicaid, increased funding for mental health and suicide prevention, and put new focus on the opioid epidemic. She also worked to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.

She ran for office because she knew Oregon needed more representation from working people and that nurses are champions when it comes to advocating for healthy, safe and thriving communities. She believes if we are going to truly have a citizen legislature, we need citizens who are not independently wealthy or retired serving. Rep. Prusak doesn’t shy away from challenges and worked hard to close the “restraining-order loophole” to keep guns out of the hands of stalkers and domestic abusers and continues to fight for the safe storage of guns. She knows what it takes to get things done and works tirelessly to ensure that all Oregonians have every opportunity for success.