WORLD CANCER DAY: Pearl River Cancer Survivor Refuses to Let Congressman Mike Lawler Silence Her; Calls On Him to Fund Health Care
ROCKLAND COUNTY, NEW YORK — On today’s World Cancer Day, Pearl River cancer survivor Tracey Obenauer is refusing to allow Congressman Mike Lawler to silence her. In a new digital ad, Tracey shares the story about her battle with cancer and calls on Congressman Lawler to stop voting to raise health care costs for Hudson Valley families. While Rep. Lawler claims to support families like hers, he has already threatened legal action, attempting to silence his own constituent.
In response, Tracey has published a new op-ed, sharing even more details of her story in her own words:
“In 2010, I was laid off from my job. I opted to keep my health insurance coverage through COBRA, the federal law that allowed me to temporarily continue and pay for my employer-sponsored insurance, because I had been getting sick. … A few months later, after repeated misdiagnoses, I learned the truth: I had a rare sarcoma.”
“In March 2011, surgeons removed a five-pound tumor from my leg and another from my lung, followed by eight weeks of concentrated radiation. By the time treatment ended, the cost of my care was close to a million dollars.”
“Even though the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, New York’s health exchange didn’t open until late 2013. The plan that my new employer offered cost more than my mortgage, so we were forced to go without."
“When I applied for coverage through the ACA marketplace in early 2014, I qualified for a tax credit, and suddenly my premium was hundreds of dollars, not thousands. The effect was immediate. We had regular checkups again. We had coverage we could actually use. It felt like a light had been turned back on.”
“Later that year, as I was walking out of work one night, my femur snapped. An unexpected side effect from the large amounts of radiation I had been given. The physical pain was excruciating, but oddly enough, the emotional relief of knowing I had coverage is what I remember most clearly. For the first time in years, I didn’t have to choose between medical treatment and financial survival. I could get the care I needed.”
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act saved my life. They saved my whole family. But it’s these very programs that Congressman Mike Lawler has begun to attack.”
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About Empire State Voices
Empire State Voices (ESV) is a multi-year campaign dedicated to amplifying the voices of everyday working New Yorkers. ESV is fighting for economic policies that make life more affordable for constituents and holding members of Congress across the state accountable when they fail to do the same.
