ICYMI: New Yorkers Urging Congressman Mike Lawler to Fight To Extend ACA Tax Credits
If Health Care Tax Credits are Allowed to Expire This Month, Thousands of Hudson Valley Families Could See Their Insurance Premiums Skyrocket
HUDSON VALLEY, NEW YORK — Ahead of Monday’s Open Enrollment deadline, with many Hudson Valley households seeing their insurance premiums skyrocket, Tracey Obenauer, a cancer survivor from Pearl River, spoke to the Rockland County Business Journal about her health care journey and what the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits meant to her and her family.
Last week, Tracey led a group of Congressman Mike Lawler’s constituents to deliver a petition signed by hundreds of Hudson Valley residents, asking him to sign on to the House discharge petition and force a vote on a 3-year extension of the tax credits.
Rockland County Business Journal: Tracey Obenauer Shares Personal Medical Story To Highlight Importance of Obamacare
In 2011, Tracey Obenauer was laser-focused on getting fit. She’d notice her left leg appeared to be getting extremely “muscular,” telling her trainer that this was her Arnold Schwarzenegger leg.
The sports trainer urged her to get it looked at. Four days later, she was on an operating table having a five-pound tumor removed from her leg. The rare cancer diagnosis set in motion an odyssey of surgeries, complications, prolonged stretches of pain and incapacity, and ultimately the amputation of her left leg.
“It doesn’t take a lot to go from doing everything right to losing everything,” said Obenauer, who is spending a good chunk of her time these days fighting for the Obamacare ACA credits that are due to expire in less than three weeks. “I’m hoping everybody, especially our Congressman Mike Lawler, makes a reasonable decision.”
December 15th is the final day for New Yorkers to enroll in health insurance plans with coverage beginning on January 1st. If Congressman Lawler and the Republicans allow the tax credits to expire, some Hudson Valley families will see monthly premiums more than double, leaving thousands of his constituents without the means to afford health care or see their doctor.
Obenauer, along with many constituents in Rockland County, are urging Lawler to extend the ACA tax credits for the 450,000 New Yorkers who are at risk of seeing premiums skyrocket or being left without health insurance altogether. She has carried a petition to Lawler’s office demanding that he back a discharge petition forcing a vote to extend the ACA tax credits for three years.
The discharge petition has 214 signatures and only needs four Republicans to force a vote to prevent skyrocketing premiums.
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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.
