CARING ABOUT HEALTH
Advocates meet to discuss future of healthcare, Rep. Faso fails to show
TROY, N.Y.>> A group of concerned local advocates held a meeting on Saturday to talk about the future of healthcare.
The meeting, held on Saturday afternoon at Brunswick Elks Lodge #2556, was led by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, along with Citizen Action of New York and The Healthcare Education Project of New York.
About 25 people were at the meeting, including representatives from healthcare advocacy groups and members of the local community.
Congressman John Faso was invited to the event, but did not attend.
Speakers included Bob Cohen, policy director of Citizen Action of NY; Gail Myers, executive director of the Statewide Senior Action Council; and Kate Breslin, president and CEO of Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy.
The discussion was moderated by Mark Emanation of the Capital District Area Labor Federation.
These speakers shared their opinions on the recently released health care reform plan proposed by the Congressional Republicans. This plan includes repealing and replacing many facets of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, enacted by then-President Barack Obama in 2010.
“What they’re doing is not reform, it’s a pull-back from all the values that we care about,” said Cohen, who believes a reform on the Affordable Care Act is needed. “There’s a million things they could to to re-
ally strengthen the ACA, such as increase subsidies, but they’re not moving in that direction. So, I think that we need to oppose the Republican plan totally.”
During the program, speakers pointed out that the plan does not ensure that those currently insured will still have coverage, and that costs could go up for patients, but it does cut taxes for pharmaceutical companies and the wealthiest.
“Health care should be a right for people,” Emanation said.
Dustin Reidy of Albany shared his personal story of how the Affordable Care Act helped him obtain health insurance after more than a decade living without it.
“It’s always present in some form,” Reidy said of that time in his life. “You never go through the day without thinking at least once that ‘I don’t have health care and if I’m an unlucky person who comes down with something serious, I will be financially destroyed for the rest of my life and my life might be in serious danger, not having access to health care.’”
Reidy enrolled in “Obamacare,” as he referred to it, on the first day possible in New York State.
“The peace of mind of actually having health care and going to get a physical for the first time in over a decade, it was incredible,” he said.
The conversation at the meeting then shifted to what the people in the room on Saturday could do to change the reversal of the Affordable Care Act. Meeting attendees suggested getting people out to vote, getting like-minded people to run for office and expressing their concerns to Congressman Faso through phone calls, post cards and by meeting with him in person.
Emanation noted that the issue at hand is not just an inconvenience for citizens, or even a matter of money, but the important services that help keep Americans alive.
“People are going to die,” he said.