Dear friends,
As last year was drawing to a close, some Members of Congress were making plans. They were going to repeal the Affordable Care Act, gut Medicaid funding, take away health insurance from millions of people, and force us back to the days when disabled people were considered uninsurable. It was going to be easy. They planned to have a bill on the President’s desk on day one – and once that happened, it would have been all over.
Then you showed up.
You showed up at town halls, at protests, and at rallies. You called your Members of Congress. You faxed, emailed, and sent letters. You shared your stories. For the better part of a year, you fought with everything you had to save our health care. And you won. Last night, at around 1:30 am, the Senate voted on their plan to repeal the ACA–and the vote failed. This is a huge victory for disabled people and for everyone who relies on the ACA and Medicaid for health insurance – and it happened because of your advocacy.
Thank you.
All of us at ASAN have been honored to advocate alongside you during this long, exhausting fight. These bills presented a critical threat to our community, and we worked around the clock to stop it. If our scripts, toolkits, or other resources helped you join the fight for health care, please consider making a donation to support ASAN’s advocacy work. Your support makes it possible for us to:
- Develop plain language advocacy toolkits
- Publish policy briefs
- Coordinate accessible phone banks, postcard campaigns, and more
- Work to make policy advocacy inclusive and accessible for all self-advocates
You can read ASAN’s statement on the vote here. We can’t thank you enough for your dedication and determination. We’re extremely proud to be part of a community that speaks out so strongly for justice. There will be more hard fights in the months ahead. They will come for our health care and for our Medicaid funding again. But you’ve proven that when we insist on being heard, when we act together, when we show up, we win.
With gratitude,
Julia Bascom
Executive Director
Autistic Self Advocacy Network