Don’t Make America Sick Again

A Letter from the Health Professionals Protest

We write you as a united, non-partisan group of health professionals who care deeply about the well-being of all Americans. We are nurses, doctors, social workers, paramedics, psychologists, community health workers, researchers, EMTs, dentists, physician assistants, public health workers, occupational and physical therapists, and more. We are the backbone of this nation’s health.

We live in your communities, and we care for patients in your communities. Our patients and their families are your constituents. Your efforts on any health policy makes their health your responsibility.

We write now specifically as Congress is on the verge of repealing the Affordable Care Act and defunding Planned Parenthood and Medicaid. Tens of millions will lose their healthcare. And without it, tens of thousands will die each year.

These are not just numbers. This is not just some vague concept of ‘healthcare coverage.’

We have all witnessed firsthand lives that have been saved or improved by the Affordable Care Act, by Planned Parenthood, and by Medicaid, and those that have been harmed or lost by uninsurance and underinsurance. When people lack necessary coverage, they miss or delay care. Their health problems then become more difficult and expensive to treat, or worse, missed until it is too late. Taking away healthcare will lead to unnecessary death and suffering that we have seen before — from opiate overdoses to amputations from uncontrolled diabetes, from cancers detected too late to newborns dying from a lack of prenatal care, from suicides, heart attacks, measles, and AIDS. This will result in a massive amount of illness and death that could have been prevented with more and better healthcare, not less.

As such, we, the undersigned, urge you to oppose repealing the ACA and to oppose defunding Planned Parenthood and Medicaid — and to do so publicly and loudly.

If you are silent, we will be there, in public, to demonstrate and speak out against your harmful actions. But your strong voice protecting the healthcare of your constituents will be met with our loud praise.

This is not a partisan issue. This is our country’s and our communities’ health. We are in this together, and we will gladly engage in an ongoing, respectful, and forward-thinking dialogue about how to provide high-quality, affordable healthcare services to our patients, your constituents.

We look forward to helping you protect the health of our communities and our nation.

• To sign this letter (and to sign up for the protest): https://goo.gl/forms/Y6ivxEu76EUFU5gN2
• For more on the protest: https://www.facebook.com/events/1620311904662531/
• This letter will be locally tailored and delivered where we have capacity.

Photo credit: Jonathan Giftos