Hundreds Rally to Protect the ACA, Expand Medicaid on Valentine’s Day
On Valentine’s Day, hundreds of people across the state gathered outside Thom Tillis and Richard Burr’s offices to protest the ACA repeal, calling for the lawmakers to “have a heart.” Those at the rallies challenged lawmakers to consider the people instead of party politics, telling their personal stories and explaining how the ACA has helped them. An ACA repeal will lead to up to a million North Carolinians losing health insurance and thousands losing their jobs. We must continue to resist!
In Tuesday’s Valentine’s Day-themed protest, activists called for lawmakers to “have a heart” and delivered thousands of individually signed valentines to the offices of Burr and U.S. Thom Tillis, North Carolina’s two Republican senators.
Protests were also held at their offices in Raleigh, Asheville, Wilmington and Charlotte calling for an expansion of Medicaid and a strengthening of the ACA.
A call to Burr’s spokesman for comment about the ACA and the protest was not immediately returned.
“I can’t tell you how scary the past few weeks have been,” Chaires said. “When you play political games with people in health care, we are the collateral damage.”
Protesters held a sea of signs at the rally — which was coined “Have A Heart: Don’t Gut Health Care” — eliciting honks from passing cars. The chain of protests across the state were organized by Progress North Carolina Action, a nonprofit group that promotes public policies and advocates solutions to improve the health and lives of North Carolinians.
Speakers at the rally called for lawmakers to consider people over party lines and also the repercussions of their actions on millions of constituents.
“For the last seven years, all we’ve heard from Congress is repeal and replace, repeal and replace,” Lee Storrow told the crowd of about 100 people. “But we’ve never seen a viable replacement plan.”
