December 18, 2016
As I noted last month, the breadth of attacks and rollbacks we’re expecting to see when Donald Trump is inaugurated in January will require that Sierra Club California work closely with various allies on issues that haven’t fallen into the category of “traditional” environmental issues.
A good example of one of those issues is health care.
Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have their sights focused on dismantling the parts of the health care system that ensures that millions of Americans, from newborns to centenarians, have access to doctors, nurses and hospitals when they need them.
The Trump-Ryan crew want to throw out Medicare, Medicaid (known as MediCal in this state), and the Affordable Care Act that was signed into law by President Barak Obama.
Our friends at Health Access, a consumer group that pushes for broad access to health care, expect Trump to take action on day one of his administration to put the dismantling effort into action.
So why should an environmental group care?
For decades, Sierra Club members and staff around California have worked hard to push for laws and regulations that will stop air pollution. So far, we’ve had some success, but the air in parts of the state still remains among the dirtiest in the country.
Where we haven’t succeeded in cleaning up the air—places like Los Angeles, San Bernardino County, Riverside, Fresno, and beyond—the rates of asthma and other lung diseases are high. Even if dirty air isn’t the direct cause of each of those cases of lung disease, that dirty air exacerbates symptoms of that disease.
If you have asthma, you’re one of nearly 2.3 million Californians. You know how a bad air day feels. You know the tightness in your chest, the effort you have to put into taking a deep breath.
Access to good medical care can be essential to getting through a bad air day. The right prescriptions for the right inhalers can make the difference between whether a child can go to school as usual or has to stay at home in bed, struggling for each breath.
We keep working to stop pollution and to clean up the air so nobody in this state has to have a bad air day.
But as long as pollution continues, we have a responsibility to make sure those people who live in this state and have to suffer from the bad air days have access to health care to help make sure that pollution doesn’t prevent them from living fully.
That’s one reason we have told our friends who are trying to save healthcare access that we’re here to help.
One way you, as a Sierra Club member or supporter, can help protect health care access is to share your story about how the Affordable Care Act has helped you.
Were you able to make sure your young adult son or daughter was able to stay on your healthcare policy after graduating from college? Were you one of the self-employed Californians who didn’t have health insurance at all before Covered California, the state’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act?
Did you benefit from MediCal expansion to help working families? Do you have a story about the value of access to health insurance that you want to share to help encourage California’s Congressional delegation to work hard to protect health care access?
Share your story now. It’s easy and won’t take long.
Your story won’t stop air pollution, but it might help make it possible for someone else to thrive until that pollution is cleaned up.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Phillips
Director
Sierra Club California is the Sacramento-based legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 California chapters of the Sierra Club.
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