NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Tennessee voters visited Senator Bob Corker’s Nashville office Tuesday to demand that he vote against any repeal of the Affordable Care Act without simultaneous replacement with a plan that provides equal or superior coverage at affordable cost.
Leading up to the Senate vote after midnight Jan. 12, 2017 to repeal the ACA without replacement, Senator Corker withdrew his own amendment to postpone repeal until March.
“We urge Senator Corker to remember the hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans who stand to lose their only option for healthcare access and to reject any replacement that does not offer equal or better coverage at an affordable price,” said Mark Brooks, coordinator for Nashville Indivisible, a grassroots organization dedicated to defending democracy, human and civil rights, dignity, and healthcare for all Tennesseans. “This issue is a matter of life or death not only for families who rely on ACA plans, but for all Tennesseans who depend on our increasingly strained health care system, which relies heavily on stability in federal healthcare policies.”
Following the meeting, voters will convene outside the building to share how the ACA has helped them and what is at stake if it is repealed without adequate replacement.
How the Affordable Care Act has helped Tennessee:
* 526,000 Tennesseans now have health insurance they could not previously afford.
* 2.8 million Tennesseans with diabetes, back injuries, cancer or transplants, can no longer be denied coverage.
* 2 million disabled, chronically ill, or severely injured Tennesseans, including more than 500,000 children, now have lifetime coverage.
* Tennessee women are no longer charged higher premiums than men, lowering their premiums by as much as 44%.
* 2.7 million Tennessee children and adults with private insurance and 1.2 million seniors on Medicare now have access to routine preventive care with no co-pay.
* Tennesseans have saved more than $424 million on drug costs because Obamacare closed the Medicare “donut hole.”
Source: Families USA: Fact Sheet, Tennessee, December 2016
