Juneau, AK, The Long Winter: A letter to Trump Supporters

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/27/1675692/-Republican-voters-come-closer-this-is-a-message-for-your-eyes-only?detail=facebook

Republican voters, this message is for your eyes only. I grew up with so many of you. I’ve lived next door, played with your kids, cheered alongside you for our favorite sports teams, eaten delicious burgers and hot dogs at your backyard party, I even call some of you “family.” Because we are family. How did we grow so far apart when it comes to politics?

I know you hated Obama because he was probably going to come for your guns. You hated Hillary because something, somethinghazi. We don’t like Trump because we view him as an incompetent con man. We can agree to disagree when it comes to the leaders of our parties. But, let’s keep it real for a minute:

Cancer does not care who you voted for in the last election.

Alzheimer’s and dementia are not checking to see who’s side you are on.

Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t give a hoot who’s yard sign you stuck in your manicured lawn.

And pediatric cancer treads on whoever the hell it wants to tread on.

You are healthy…until you aren’t. When one of these things comes for you or a loved one, you will want to be covered. You’ll want to know that if it is your child or grandchild who is disabled, they won’t face lifetime limits. You’ll want to know you can’t be refused coverage because of a pre-existing condition. You’ll want your parent, even yourself, to get quality nursing home care if Alzheimer’s comes a-knockin’.

The Republican bill on the verge of a Senate vote is a disaster for all of us. Don’t you remember only a few short years ago when families regularly went bankrupt directly due to health care debts? When people were denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions? Even for minor things like a bum knee? Because that happened and it wasn’t so long ago. Check out this chart detailing the decline in personal bankruptcies.

That is a huge, huge change. Those families saved from bankruptcy weren’t divided into Republicans or Democrats. They’re American families whose lives were changed for the better because of the Affordable Care Act. And the bill under consideration right now would take us back to those golden days of personal bankruptcy and debt.

The bill under consideration right now would end the essential health benefits portion of the Affordable Care Act. Not sure what that means? It means that by law, every health insurance plan had to offer basic services like emergency room visits, mammograms, colonoscopies, maternal and newborn care. It meant that insurance companies cannot cap your lifetime coverage. If you have a child with disabilities, a heart condition, breast cancer or any of the other manageable ailments that could strike any one of us, insurance companies cannot simply drop you from coverage, like they did in the “good old days.”

It will also mean your employer no longer has to provide insurance benefits. An estimated 4 million Americans will be dropped from their employer's plans overnight, which is even worse than the losses in the bill passed by the House last month:

The number of people losing employer-provided coverage under the Senate’s legislation is an increase from the bill passed by the House last month. The CBO in May assessed that 2 million people would lose employer-provided coverage in 2018 under the House legislation.

Looking more broadly at the insurance market, CBO projected that 15 million more people would become uninsured next year under the Senate bill, with a total of 22 million people becoming uninsured over the next 10 years.

15 million people will lose their health insurance NEXT YEAR.

Below you can see the impact, the improvement in millions of lives—lives from both sides of the aisle. These people are your friends, your neighbors, your family. I shared this with you because we need you to fight. We need you to pick up the phone and call your senator, red or blue, and tell them this is not okay, not in your name. This bill will cause 22 million to lose their current insurance, including 4 million people currently on employer-based plans. That’s right, you won’t be safe because your employer provides insurance.

Take one minute to look at these stories and then pick up the phone and take one minute (yes, that is all it takes) of your time to tell your senators to REJECT this bill and start working on a bipartisan solution immediately. Call them at (202) 224-3121. If the line is busy or you go to voicemail, CLICK HERE to find the phone numbers of the local offices of every U.S. Senator.