‘Die-In’ participants say new health care bill will cost lives

Twenty-eight American Health Care Act protesters staged a “die-in” outside of 8th District Congressman Dave Reichert’s Issaquah office on Tuesday evening ahead of Thursday’s vote on the American Health Care Act in the House of Representatives.

Lying down beside homemade cardboard gravestones, they used the image of their own deaths to express the idea that the bill known as “Trumpcare” will cost Americans who can no longer afford health care their lives.

“I am petrified that so many of my fellow 8th District residents are threatened with losing their health care, which their lives depend on,” said Chris Petzold, leader of Indivisible Washington 8th District, one of the organizing groups. “We’re fighting for everyone here.”

“Dave Reichert looked me in the face and said no one is going to lose health care,” said Michelle Straka, leader of Snoqualmie Valley Indivisibles, the other organizing group. “I don’t believe him.”

The protesters stated that an estimated 58,000 people in the district will lose health care, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

Straka, who has Multiple Sclerosis, fears for her health if Trumpcare passes. “If [my health care] goes away … I’m gonna end up in a wheelchair and I’m gonna die,” she said.