With Trumpcare's debut just around the corner, many Americans fear that their healthcare costs are going to become too much to bear. A New Jersey mom has bravely taken up arms against the pending changes by sharing the hospital bills she pays each month to care for her chronically ill son on Twitter, and her story is so powerful that it's shaking the Internet.
Ali Chandra, a registered nurse by profession, was still pregnant with young Ethan when she found out he would be born with heterotaxy syndrome, a rare disease that causes vital organs to be arranged abnormally, and several heart defects. Ethan had his first open heart surgery just 6 days after he was born in July of 2014, and has undergone multiple procedures since then, most recently in late February 2017. Though most of Chandra's expenses related to Ethan's medical needs are covered by her insurance, that could change with the new healthcare plan soon to be implemented by the Trump administration.
The most damaging law proposed by the new Trumpcare bill is the "lifetime cap," a limit on how much money any one person can claim through their health insurance plan. These limits were banned by the Obama administration, but they could be back on the table if the GOP moves forward with their current objectives. This means that children like Ethan will most likely be already maxed out as soon as the law comes into effect, leaving their parents to foot the bill out of their own pockets. "A lifetime cap on benefits is the same as saying, "Sorry, you're not worth keeping alive anymore. You're just too expensive,"" Chandra wrote on Twitter.
Both the mom's photo of her last hospital invoice and her stream of tweets that followed have gone viral, gaining over 52 thousand retweets and over 79 thousand likes. Other parents identified with Chandra's concerns, and stood in solidarity with her staunch opposition to Trumpcare. Follow her compelling story below, and tell us what you think in the comments.
More info: Hope for Ethan
People were quick to respond to her message:
