July 13, 2020/Press
ICYMI: Terry Van Duyn: 27M people have lost insurance. Trump is trying to make it harder to get.
In an op-ed in the Asheville Citizen-Times, Sen. Terry Van Duyn, a former Affordable Care Act (ACA) navigator, slammed the Trump administration and its Republican allies for their ongoing legal campaign to dismantle the law, which provides various health protections for millions of North Carolinians.
Van Duyn noted that over the last few months as unemployment has skyrocketed throughout President Trump’s handling of the pandemic, some studies show as many as 27 million Americans have lost employer-sponsored health insurance. Instead of trying to expand access to affordable care during a public health crisis, the President and Republican Attorneys General are “endangering the health care and protections of millions” in North Carolina and across the country, she said.
Highlights:
- As a former ACA Navigator, I was tasked with helping people get the information they needed to purchase insurance through the federal exchange. I saw the reactions of so many people who were gaining health insurance for the first time.
- As lawmakers, we should be doing everything in our power right now to increase access to affordable health insurance. In North Carolina, that means expanding Medicaid. In Washington, it means reopening the federal insurance exchange and dropping the Republicans’ partisan, dangerous lawsuit aimed at unraveling the Affordable Care Act.
- In North Carolina, families should never be forced to choose between filling a prescription they need and buying a load of groceries.
- President Trump, Senator Tillis, and Republicans in Washington and Raleigh have made their intentions clear. They won’t be persuaded by reason or compassion, and they won’t end their assault on the ACA. The only thing left to do is to vote them out of office in November.
Read the full op-ed HERE.