They Obama-care!
Doctors and medical professionals clad in lab coats and scrubs gathered outside Rep. Dan Donovan’s Dyker Heights office on Feb. 25 and protested his efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act, claiming too many people will lose their health care if President Trump’s promise to do void the system becomes a reality.
“There are people in Donovan’s district who are going to suffer,” said Flatbush resident Cameron Page, who practices at Mount Sinai Brooklyn and other hospitals in the city.
The activists showed up outside the office of city’s only Republican member of Congress, on 13th Avenue between 73rd and 74th Streets, waving signs that declared, “Protect our patients” and “Have some guts” with a diagram of intestines. And other concerned citizens showed up with simple signs with statements such as, “I live in Bay Ridge. I got cancer. Obamacare saved my life.”
The protest was one of 20 across the country in which those in the medical world demonstrated outside of elected officials’ offices demanding Congress members vow to not gut the Affordable Care Act.
Last month Donovan (R–Bay Ridge) and other pols came under fire for voting for a resolution that works toward undoing the Affordable Care Act and many felt that was a breaking a point, said an organizer behind the Dyker Heights and national protests.
“We obviously don’t want to be there on our day off, but 200 people were there because at a certain point health professionals have to leave the office and advocate on behalf of their patients,” said Andrew Goldstein, a doctor from Manhattan. “We’re hear to make sure their voices are heard and send a message that gutting the Affordable Care Act will leave millions without health care.”
But Donovan’s reps say the activists have nothing to fear because he doesn’t plan on repealing the Affordable Care Act unless there is a plan to replace it.
“He’s not going to pull the rug out on anyone,” said Alexia Sikora. “He believes that coverage should be more affordable. When the repeal happens, he wants to ensure that the reforms don’t forget the most vulnerable among us.”
