1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am furious with the 8 Democratic senators who caved this week on a worthless promise from the Republicans to hold a future vote about ACA subsidies. It was incredibly weak. Coming off a series of huge electoral victories just a few days earlier, this was a major misstep. Chuck Schumer is not an effective Minority Leader and needs to be replaced. I’m a physician and I remember what it was like before the ACA. This is also personal for me. Before the ACA, my mom lost her insurance because she lost her job, and then we discovered she had a brain tumor the size of a softball. Two brain surgeries saved her life but left her financially devastated, and the damage from the tumor left her permanently disabled. She could not go to a skilled nursing facility after surgery to get full rehabilitation, because she had no insurance, so she lived on my couch for months while I worked 80 hours a week as a medical resident. That’s what life was like before the ACA. And Senate Democrats CAVED and let Republicans rip away the protections we’ve come to count on for the past 12 years. I realize there are additional procedural votes that will happen bin the coming weeks. You need to pressure your Democratic colleagues to flip back and to vote in a way that will SAVE THE ACA and PROTECT THE NEGOTIATING ADVANTAGE THAT DEMOCRATS HAVE REGARDING THE ACA.