MADISON, Wis. — In battleground states across the country, including Wisconsin, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are rallying their friends and neighbors to get behind President Joe Biden in November.
This week, during a ‘Health Care Providers for Biden-Harris’ event, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez grabbed a coffee and sat down with local workers for a chat about what they feel is at stake in 2024 when it comes to health care in America.
For Samantha Crowley, a third-year medical student at UW-Madison, finding an example from her time spent in the emergency room was easy.
“As soon as this kid woke up, he looked around, saw what was happening, and he said, ‘Oh my God, how much is this going to cost me?’ That was his first thought,” Crowley recalled of a recent patient treated for injuries from a car accident.
Those types of stories are what the Biden-Harris campaign is now highlighting as part of a campaign effort to make sure voters know about former President Donald Trump’s history of vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), often called “Obamacare.”
The landmark legislation not only overhauled health care, but also stopped insurance companies from denying people for having preexisting medical conditions.
According to the campaign, 2.4 million Wisconsinites with preexisting conditions could lose critical protections if Trump were to be elected and follow through on his threat.
“The motive cannot be money, and right now it is,” Crowley added. “And it’s shown by that— that patients are worried about how much their health care is going to cost them.”
Lavonda Hayes has spent more than two decades working in health care, most recently as a nurse in Madison. She is also concerned about what people will do if Trump is elected and the ACA goes away.
“Some won’t come in for care, and then some will be dying off because they don’t come in for care, but then you’re also going to have the ones coming in just for care for their emergency problem,” Hayes explained.
Hayes said she is grateful for platforms such as Tuesday's coffee chat that not only amplify her voice but help her have conversations in the community too.
“If you vote for that person that’s not looking out for your wellbeing, what do you think is going to happen? You’re going to be burnt out, mentally and physically, then you’re going to want to leave whatever you’re doing that you were so passionate about,” Hayes said.
Those are the types of messages the Lt. Gov. Rodriguez said matter most.
“This is something that we’re all going to have to continue to fight and make sure your voices are heard all across the state because it could not be more critical,” Rodriguez told the group.
Last week, the Biden-Harris campaign launched a new ad titled “Terminate” in Wisconsin that criticized Trump’s call to terminate the ACA that 266,000 Wisconsinites rely on.