Thread by @VABVOX

#DyingIs
Being sick in America.
Being poor in America.
Having your healthcare stolen in America.
#GrahamCassidy
1/

#DyingIs
Having the Speaker of the House lie to America repeatedly & no one hold him accountable.

2/

#DyingIs
Knowing if I were screaming "Help me! I’m dying!" SOMEONE would try to save my life, but people will let #GrahamCassidy pass. 3/

#DyingIs
Gasping for breath, heart pounding with Afib cause by a PE & not being able to get people to help prevent #GrahamCassidy. 4/

#DyingIs
Tweeting about having cancer & MS & how #GrahamCassidy will kill me. Screaming for help. Pleading for a viral response. 5/

#DyingIs
Focus is on #singlepayer, which folks think we’ll have after #GrahamCassidy passes & 35M lose health ins.
It needs 60 votes. 6/

#DyingIs
Sanders’ M4A bill, "borrowed" from @RepJohnConyers, who’s put it up every year for 20yrs, but never been invited on a talk show. 7/

#DyingIs
Knowing there are 49 votes for #GrahamCassidy NOW(needs 51).
Only 16 for M4A (needs 60).
And no plan for implementation of M4A. 8/

#DyingIs
Being dxd with #cancer at 26, MS at 30, fighting to hang onto health ins, able to change jobs, newspapers, but never ins co. 9/

#DyingIs
Your mother getting very sick at 60. Must go to a nursing home. #Medicaid pays for part of it. Your sibling pays for the rest. 10/

#DyingIs
You agree to pay for Dad if anything goes wrong, because your mother died slowly & painfully, miserably & SO expensively. 11/

#DyingIs
Your father, who plays tennis every week & has a wife younger than you, has a sudden stroke. He made you power of attorney. 12/

#DyingIs
Putting your handsome, reads-a-couple-books-a-week,now-paralyzed dad in a nursing home.Feeding tube,can’t read,barely speaks. 13/

#DyingIs
#Medicaid pays only so much. You pay the rest. It crushes you. You go bankrupt. Then YOU get a new diagnosis. 14/

#DyingIs
Watching your dad die slowly. Painfully. #Medicaid won’t pay for a hearing aid or new glasses when someone steals his. 15/

#DyingIs
A close friend gets #cancer. She survives. But goes bankrupt.
The husband of another friend gets cancer. They go bankrupt. 16/

#DyingIs
Relaxing a little after #ACA is passed. Thinking you are safe. Then your GOP governor refuses #Medicaid expansion. Files suit. 17/

#DyingIs
Signing up at healthcare.gov but making too little money to qualify for subsidy. Being sent to #Medicaid expansion. 18/

#DyingIs
Your state & others doesn’t have #Medicaid expansion because Dems never thought GOP could be so cruel. You pay full price. 19/

#DyingIs
Losing everything to medical bankruptcy–for your father & you–like millions of others. Watching legislators ignore your lives. 20/

#DyingIs
Being desperate. Thinking you can sell your painkillers–$40 a pill on the street–to pay for your health insurance premium. 21/

#DyingIs
Having a conscience.
Knowing you can’t contribute to someone else’s addiction by selling your pills.
But the thought is there. 22/

#DyingIs
All you want to is less stress.
Recalling how you got sick on assignment in Toronto.
All the hospital charged you was $100. 23/

#DyingIs
Knowing @HillaryClinton will protect #ACA, seek SP/#UHC.
You’re fighting #cancer, never been sicker, but HRC will protect you. 24/

#DyingIs
Trump campaigning on taking everyone’s healthcare.
Folks not caring enough about poor, sick, #disabled to vote against him. 25/

#DyingIs
Tweeting from the hospital over&over
Your arm when they can’t find a vein
Your hand black from the infection caused by the IV.
25/

#DyingIs
Tweeting from the hospital after treatment causes paralysis.
The "gym" where they give you 3 days to learn to "walk" again.
26/

#DyingIs
Learning that the only rehab your insurance will pay for doesn’t have a physical therapist on the premises. 27/

#DyingIs
Being sent home on a holiday weekend, paralyzed, with neither you nor your wife knowing how you’re going to manage. 28/

#DyingIs
Pain. Shock. Fear.
In the hospital they gave you communion every day.
At home you can’t even pray.
You & The Wife fight a lot.29/

#DyingIs
Recalling covering others' illnesses: a Pulitzer nom for writing about pediatric AIDS. The sweetness of abandoned AIDS babies. 30/

#DyingIs
Writing about sitting by the coffin of a 4yr old #cancer victim while doing a story about pesticide poisoning & farm workers. 31/

#DyingIs
Sitting at bedside of an AIDS patient covered in Kaposi’s lesions. There are rats. You're 26. He's 23. He dies. You get cancer.32/

#DyingIs
Knowing everything about the healthcare system yet being powerless to help anyone because it’s so broken & now, so are you. 33/

#DyingIs
Writing 30yrs worth of articles,5 books,about what it is to be sick and/or #disabled in America, yet folks are still suffering. 34/

#DyingIs
Being unable to sleep because you have to sit up to keep breathing, now.
Who can sleep sitting up, night after night?
35/

#DyingIs
Inability to relax because #GOP wants to take what little healthcare you have. People telling you their healthcare nightmares. 36/

#DyingIs
Unable to go outside since JULY when PT stopped coming.
Your insurance decided you didn’t need any more PT.
It's SEPTEMBER. 37/

#DyingIs
Wanting the life you had.
Being willing to settle for surviving.
Knowing #GrahamCassidy will kill you,others.
Being powerless.
38/

#DyingIs
Trying not to hate those who made this happen w/their careless votes.
Trying not to hate those who won't even make a call.
38/

#DyingIs
Writing at 3am & aching for quiet, but the sound of the oxygen generator punctuates every sentence. Oxygen hisses in your ear. 40/

#DyingIs
Knowing how much more you want to do.
Watching your sleeping wife.
Guilty for how your illness has bankrupted her, too.
41/

#DyingIs
Hoping folks will care enough to save your life, the way you have tried to save others’.Hoping they will know it's theirs, too. 42/

#DyingIs
Smiling faces of #GOP prepping to deny 35M health ins.

Senate girds for final #Obamacare #repeal vote politi.co/2fiNsFG 43/

#DyingIs
“Vast majority of states will get less money.”
@BillCassidy lying to folks whose only chance is #SaveACA politico.com/story/2017/09/…

#DyingIs people so naïve about healthcare they think killing #ACA will magically erect #SinglePayer/#UHC when even a vote requires 60.
45/

#DyingIs
Any #M4A/#UHC/#SinglePayer (all different) requires 13 GOP votes. There isn't 1. #ACA gives a platform to fight for these.
46/

#DyingIs
Buried in #GrahamCassidy is removal of every preventative for women. Also buried is disallowing #abortion even by private ins. 47/

#DyingIs
MILLIONS of Americans about to be sent into poverty &/or literal death because of #GrahamCassidy.
thedailybeast.com/obamacare-repe… 48/

#DyingIs
#Republicans Rush Toward an #Obamacare #Repeal With Little Time and Information thebea.st/2xhIUpo?source…
49/

#DyingIs knowing women & POC will suffer most from #ACARepeal.
Sign up for ACA while you can.
Help #SaveACA:
obamacarefacts.com/saveobamacare/
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