Senator Jeff Merkley on the Senate floor this week
Senator Jeff Merkley on the Senate floor this week

Both Oregon's senators and three of its representatives are coming to Northeast Portland on Sunday to "fight back and save healthcare," as Republicans in congress are working to boot the Affordable Care Act.

Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, along with Representatives Earl Blumenauer, Kurt Schrader, and Suzanne Bonamici are headed to the gym of Self Enhancement, Inc.—"a nonprofit organization supporting at-risk urban youth"—at noon on Sunday "to tell Republicans loudly and clearly: You are not going to get away with it."

Per the event page on berniesanders.com: "At a time when the United States remains the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all as a right, the Republicans want to throw nearly 30 million people off of health insurance, make massive cuts to Medicaid and defund Planned Parenthood."

Oregon congresspeople not included to the event: Rep. Peter DeFazio (a Democrat who's against the repeal) and Rep. Greg Walden (a Republican representing the eastern part of state who wants to repeal it).

Merkley, Wyden, Blumenauer, Schrader, and Bonamici—all Democrats, of course—have been supporters of "Obamacare" and critics of the Republicans trying to get rid of it.

Here's Wyden this week:

Here's Merkley from this week:

Here's a Blumenauer newsletter from last week:

If they succeed this time, there will be disastrous consequences – not only for the almost 30 million people who now have insurance (some for the first time, because of the ACA), but also for the entire U.S. health care system now facing uncertainty.

Current Republican proposals will increase health care costs and put insurance companies back in charge – not to mention, these proposals will cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Instead of helping expand health care coverage to low-income Americans, it will hurt middle class families and return us to the days when insurance companies discriminated against women, the sick, and the poor.

Here's Bonamici from this week:

Here's a Schrader press release from last week:

After drafting and passing a trillion-dollar, deficit-busting tax and budget bill last month, my Republican colleagues now want to get some money back—on the backs of middle- and lower-income Americans. These are the people who have been struggling to recover from the Great Recession. These families and small businesses that are having trouble staying afloat would now lose access to affordable health care. It is irresponsible.

I don’t get it. The Affordable Care Act gives millions of families a hand up in order to be able to afford health insurance. Families are put in the driver’s seat in the health insurance market, and are seeing great results. This is something we have been doing in Oregon for some time now. Market-based principles and personal responsibility. That is the heart of the ACA, and I know it’s something the Speaker understands.