On Sunday, January 15, I will be joining about 6,000 (and counting) people at the ”Our First Stand: Save Health Care” rally in Warren, Michigan, sponsored by the Michigan Democratic Party.
The event is one of more than 50 rallies and other actions that will take place Sunday.
Click here to see a list of 75 places, times, venues and contacts for these events.
Response to the Michigan event, which features Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, has been so strong that the original venue had to be scrapped in favor of one large enough to accommodate the crowd. We’ll be gathering OUTSIDE (so be prepared) at Macomb Community College, 14500 E. 12 Mile Rd., Warren, MI, with a start time of 12:30 PM, to hear a number of speakers leading the national fight to protect ALL our health care plans, starting with Obamacare. Sanders and Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, will be joined by the entire Michigan Democratic Delegation to Congress; Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood CEO; and others, all speaking to us about why we need to fight and how best to do it.
It will not require much persuasion. Michigan Democrats are galvanized. We have a lot at stake -- nearly 10% of our entire population would lose their coverage in the wake of a partial or a complete ACA repeal, and that’s not even including the impact down the road on people with employer-based coverage, or those on Medicare. Eventually, everyone with health insurance will suffer harm related to repeal of provisions (e.g. the lifting of a lifetime cap on benefits) even though they do not participate in the exchanges or in Medicaid Expansion directly.
For me, personally, the impact would be financially catastrophic immediately. My younger daughter, now 20, has multiple chronic conditions. I can keep her on my employer-provided health insurance policy now, but without the ACA protections that would not be possible. She is also uninsurable under the bad old system -- except at exorbitant cost, if a policy could be found at all. And we are far from unusual just in my social circles.
The ACA/Obamacare is not perfect. I campaigned and canvassed vigorously in the lead-up to the votes for a public option, which was very appealing. Then, upon passage of the final version, I was very disappointed that many of its provisions did not benefit me or my family. We weren’t eligible for the exchange since my husband’s employer did offer an allegedly-affordable (while not taking into consideration, of course, the family premium cost) health insurance plan, a poor-quality one to boot.
But the ACA is still markedly better than the old system, which worked for insurers more than for anyone else. The only thing that Michigan governor Snyder has done right during his time in office was to insist upon accepting Medicaid expansion over the strong objections of our Tea Party-loving legislature.
We in Michigan have additional motivation to stand up now. We lost the election for Clinton by a mere 10,000 votes. If 1 person *per precinct* had flipped from T***p to Clinton, we would have remained a blue state. As a Democratic Party activist, I feel ashamed and chagrined that we didn’t do better. But now every single Democrat I know, along with thousands of people who are newly motivated to join us, are saying “Resist!” We must reclaim our state in 2018, and we start that effort right now by doing everything we can to protect Obamacare.
RSVP HERE
Michigan Daily Kos members: please note in the comments if you will be there too!