A Middlesex County mother’s tweets about her young son’s heart surgeries and health care have gone viral.
Alison Chandra posted photos of her 3-year-old son Ethan’s medical bills on Twitter last week to bring attention to the health care debate ongoing in Congress.
Chandra says that her son has a rare heart defect known as
heterotaxy and has already faced several open heart surgeries at his young age. He is dependent on a pacemaker and will likely have to be on medication his entire life.
Chandra says that good health care coverage and good health care laws are important to her family.
“What’s before us is not better, not better than what he have right now, so stop trying to push it through,” she says, referring to the most recent Republican Senate health care bill.
The tweets that Chandra posted showed that if her family did not have health insurance Ethan’s most recent surgery would have cost the family $231,000. They ended up paying just $500 thanks to her coverage. The tweets received attention around the world.
“My messages on Twitter were flooded with stories around country and world with people who've seen our story and shared theirs with me and encouraged me to keep fighting,” she says.
Chandra says that her biggest concern for the GOP plan is talk of a lifetime cap on benefits. She says that Ethan and many others would lose coverage if this were to be the case.
Senate Republicans Tuesday delayed voting on their newest version of the bill until after the July 4 recess because of a lack of support.
Many Republican leaders have come out against the plan.