Republicans in Congress, along with President Trump, have taken the first steps toward repealing the Affordable Care Act. Residents from Ohio's 12th district are petitioning to meet with their representative to demand a comprehensive replacement.
As a lifelong type-one diabetic, Mindy Hedges struggled to afford her medications. Her pre-existing condition barred her from getting health insurance.
"The affordable healthcare act, when it came, it actually saved my life because I wasn't buying the care that I needed to keep my diabetes in control," Hedges says.
Now that an ACA repeal is a possibility, Hedges and her fellow residents have gathered more than 1,800 signatures and delivered them to their Congressional representative, Republican Pat Tiberi, demanding he hold a town hall meeting.
Tiberi has called the ACA a defunct program that's unsustainable financially.
Hedges says that residents want the chance to tell him what they expect of him: "To stand up and represent his people instead of his party, and to be non-partisan in this whole process, because people's lives are at stake."
Petitioners want Tiberi to respond by Monday morning.
