Nevada resident Laura Packard, whom President Donald Trump blocked on Twitter after her criticism of the so-called Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, refuses to be silenced.
Instead, she blasted the president directly in a video on his renewed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and how it will impact Americans, particularly those with pre-existing conditions.
“You promised months ago that you would have health care reform that would make things better, more affordable, that wouldn’t leave anybody out in the cold, but I think you should read your own bill because it puts us all at risk,” Packard said in the clip posted on Thursday afternoon.
“I don’t understand why any senator, let alone my senator, Senator Heller, would think that this is a good idea—why throwing hundreds of thousands of Nevadans, like me, off their health insurance is a good plan so some fat-cat billionaires can make a few extra dollars,” she continued. “What is the reasoning behind that?”
President Trump blocked a woman with stage 4 cancer on Twitter.
— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) September 21, 2017
Here’s her response: pic.twitter.com/JNJ39xoUM5
The41-year-old consultant, who has stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, discovered on Wednesday that Trump had blocked her just one day after she had tweeted him challenging his support of the new bill.
Your latest TrumpCare bill would mean 32M Americans will lose their health insurance. What about putting them first? https://t.co/wPObZisLQp
— Laura Packard (@lpackard) September 19, 2017
Having much immediately at stake in the debate over healthcare, Packard has been actively advocating for Obamacare in recent months—writing opinion editorials and appearing in one other video. For Packard, Trump’s action against her and the attention it received has boosted the platform for her message.
I have stage 4 Hodgkin's lymphoma. 1st chemo today. Obamacare is literally keeping me alive & can get me cured. If it survives. #SavetheACA
— Laura Packard (@lpackard) May 4, 2017
As ThinkProgress reports, under the new Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, an American like Packard would be subject to “a $140,510 surcharge on their annual health premium”—a cost she told the publication was unaffordable and would leave families bankrupt. She tweeted in May that she was beginning chemotherapy as the treatment for her cancer and that she was only able to afford it through Obamacare.
“Throwing us to the mercy of the insurance companies is not the way to go,” she continues in the video to Trump. “We need the protections of the Affordable Care Act so that people with pre-existing conditions will be covered, so that people at or near the poverty line can have access to the Medicaid expansion to pay for it.”
“I don’t know why but it doesn’t seem like anyone can reach you unless they go on Fox, and I’m not really in Fox-worthy shape right now,” she says. “But my life has meaning. Millions of Americans facing terrible diseases or accidents, like a car accident, our lives have meaning. … We need someone that will stand up for us, rather than selling us out. We’ll see if that’s you, President Trump.”