Voter Who Confronted Ted Cruz on Obamacare Said He’s Surprised by the Attention
Last fall, Mike Valde
attended a Ted Cruz speech, where the Texas senator delivered his
standard presidential promise to repeal President Obama’s signature
health care law.
As he sat in the audience, Mr. Valde, 63, of Coralville, Iowa, thought of his brother-in-law, Mark Gaffney, who had recently died
but had also used the law to buy insurance. Mr. Valde said he began to
wonder how Mr. Cruz would replace the Affordable Care Act – and how it
would impact people like Mr. Gaffney.
“After I saw him
there, I didn’t say a word. I wished I had asked him something,” Mr.
Valde, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, recalled in a phone interview
Sunday. “Why didn’t I speak up and say, ‘How do you take care of the
Mark Gaffneys of the world?’”
So, on Saturday, Mr. Valde got his chance – and took it – during an intense exchange
with Mr. Cruz in a middle school cafeteria in Hubbard, Iowa. Mr. Valde
described how Mr. Gaffney, a barber in Arizona, worked for himself and
never had a paid vacation day, and used the health care law, at last, to
buy insurance. He began feeling ill and went to a doctor, and soon
learned he had terminal cancer, Mr. Valde told Mr. Cruz. The room went
silent.
“Mark never had health care until Obamacare,” Mr. Valde told Mr. Cruz, “What are you going to replace it with?”
Mr. Cruz, during a
back-and-forth, expressed condolences, while also deriding the law as a
job-killer that has made insurance premiums “skyrocket.”
The exchange became a
highly discussed moment on the campaign trail during the final days
before the Iowa caucuses. Later Saturday, Mrs. Clinton mentioned it
during a rally at a high school, criticizing how Mr. Cruz does not offer
an alternative to the health care law.
Mr. Valde and his
wife, Jill, Mr. Gaffney’s sister, attended a Bill Clinton rally on
Sunday and chatted with Mr. Clinton in the rope line, with the former
president telling them he had heard about the question posed to Mr.
Cruz.
The Valdes said they
were surprised by the attention, with word of the exchange getting back
to Mr. Gaffney’s friends hundreds of miles away. “When Mark’s friends
saw it in Arizona, they said, ‘Thanks for bringing it up,’” Mrs. Valde
said.
Republicans in
Congress have repeatedly tried to repeal the health care law, which they
see as an expensive government program, but President Obama has vetoed
their attempts. The law is unpopular in public opinion polls, and Mr.
Cruz and virtually all the other Republican candidates have vowed to get
rid of it if elected.
Mr. and Mrs. Valde
said in the interview that before the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Gaffney
had either been uninsured or lightly insured, making it prohibitively
expensive for him to see doctors.
“He was having
financial problems and the last thing he could do was pay to take care
of himself,” Mrs. Valde said. “He’d say: ‘It’s just too expensive. I
can’t afford to go.’”
When coverage under
the health care law went into effect in 2014, Mrs. Valde said she
suggested to her brother that he should sign up, and he eventually did,
though she did not know precisely when.
It was last spring
when they visited him that they noticed that he appeared unwell, and
they encouraged him to see a doctor. By summer, he told them that he had
terminal cancer, and he died on Aug. 16 at age 58.
The Valdes said that
they did not believe that earlier access to the health insurance
necessarily would have saved Mr. Gaffney’s life, but that his plight
convinced them that the access to coverage he ultimately obtained would
be important for others. They were grateful, they said, that Mr. Gaffney
was eventually able to see a doctor.
“What about people like him? Mr. Valde said. “People could be saved.”
He added, “There are a lot of Mark Gaffneys out there.”
Find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via Facebook, Twitter and the First Draft newsletter.
end quote from:
end quote from: 
No comments:
Post a Comment