This week, the Senate will take a vote that could impact the lives of all New Mexicans. The vote on whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could cancel health insurance that 300,000 New Mexicans and 32 million Americans rely on, and make it harder for millions more to get health care when they need it.
I’ll be the first to admit that the ACA isn’t perfect and needs to be fixed. But there is no question that it has dramatically improved access to health care in New Mexico. And New Mexicans have made their opinions clear: over 13,000 have written and called, urging me to save the ACA because they rely on it to access and afford quality health insurance. These are hard-working people who want nothing more than to keep their families safe and healthy. They are mothers who can sleep at night knowing the law won’t allow insurance companies to deny them care because their sick child has a pre-existing condition. They are students with life-threatening health conditions who can stay in school and work toward a career because their care is covered by Medicaid. They are the entrepreneurs and innovators who are brave enough to start their own businesses because they know they will be covered if something unexpected happens. These are the people I’m fighting to protect.
Watch New Mexico families explain how the ACA has helped change their lives.
We need to keep New Mexicans covered. And we can’t solve our health care challenges by going backward, canceling the health insurance that millions of Americans depend on, or sabotaging the ACA by undermining the parts that make it work. I want Washington to listen to these New Mexicans, stop the attack on Obamacare, and start working across party lines to improve the law.
I hope you will raise your voice to help bring some common sense to this debate and protect the gains we have made. Share the video, send your health care stories to me at SenTomUdall@tomudall.senate.gov, and join the fight to #KeepNMCovered.
