Andy Kim, Health Care Advocates Join Protect Our Care to Call for an End to GOP Attacks on New Jerseyans’ Health Care
View photos of today’s event here.
BURLINGTON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY – This morning, Protect Our Care’s nationwide bus tour arrived in New Jersey to call attention to the Republicans ongoing war on health care care. Headlined by Andy Kim and cancer survivor Laura Packard, the event highlighted the actions Republicans are taking to harm New Jerseyans’ care and called on Rep. Tom MacArthur to work instead to protect our health care.
Kim and Packard shared powerful stories of why the issue of health care is so important to them:
“I’m the father of two baby boys, and my youngest baby was someone who had significant health problems right from the very beginning,” said Kim. “I remember when the doctors told us that he was dangerously underweight and had real risk. And it reminded me of how many families in this country and this community have health care crises and are unsure of how they’ll be able to afford it.”
“I’m alive because of the Affordable Care Act,” said Packard. “I’m a stage four cancer survivor and I’m on this tour to defend our attacks against the GOP. President Trump may have blocked me on Twitter, but he can’t stop me and the American people from fighting to protect our care.”
Their concerns over health care repeal were shared by Dr. Jennifer Chuang, a pediatrician who spoke of patients rationing insulin and skipping doctor’s appointments due to lack of medical coverage; Claudia Storichs, a registered nurse who spoke of the health benefits patients have seen under the Affordable Care Act; and Jim Parker, a small business owner who said the ACA has been important to keep workers who need the protections offered by it.
These benefits were then reinforced by Bruce Davis, the economic chair of the New Jersey NAACP, who spoke of the 10% insurance rate increase among African-Americans due to the ACA, and the harms cuts to Medicaid and Medicare would bring, and Seth Hahn, the political director of CWA New Jersey, who spoke of the care New Jersey workers have received since passage – and how Republicans have worked to take away these protections.
“We’re glad to be here because we have to be, not because we want to,” said Brad Woodhosue, executive director of Protect Our Care. “We should not have to fight this war on health care, but we will, because the health care of the American people is so important that we’re not going to let partisan politics on behalf of Republicans and people like Tom MacArthur take it away.”
At today’s event, Burlington County residents, health care advocates, elected officials and members of Protect Our Care detailed the numbers ways in which Republicans have attacked health care, and how these actions have cut coverage and increased costs for New Jerseyans. Because of the Republican repeal-and-sabotage agenda:
- In New Jersey, out of pocket costs for older people could have increased by as much as $11,340 by 2026 if AHCA had become law
- New Jersey expanded Medicaid under the ACA and the 500,000 New Jerseyans who have gained coverage because of this program would find their care at risk if the law were repealed.
- 243,000 New Jerseyans who have obtained health insurance through the ACA marketplace could lose their coverage if a judge sides with President Trump and the GOP in their lawsuit; and protections for 3.8 million New Jerseyans, including more than 300,000 in NJ-03, living with a pre-existing condition would be in jeopardy.
- Hundreds of billions of dollars have been cut from Medicare.
- Dozens of hospitals in rural areas have closed, exacerbating the care and coverage gaps that exist for families in America’s rural communities.
- Insurance rates in New Jersey dropped by an average of 9.3 percent this year despite Republican attempts at sabotage, a decrease that Governor Phil Murphy attributed to “sticking to the tenets of the Affordable Care Act.”
- Representative Tom MacArthur helped author and passed a health care repeal bill that would cause 23 million people to lose coverage and gut protections for people with pre-existing condition; voted for a budget amendment that would cut Medicaid by $700 billion over ten years, $114 billion in a single year alone. MacArthur also voted for a tax scam that doubled as a sneaky repeal of the Affordable Care Act by kicking 13 million people off of their insurance and raising premiums by double digits for millions more.
Later today, “Care Force One” will head to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit protectourcarebustour.com.