![]() ![]() A few days before the town hall, she posted a more alarming message. It was a small amount, but enough to cover a motel for her next trip to Dallas to see a specialist unavailable in her state. In a post from November she said she was excited to receive $265. She had set up a fundraising page on YouCaring, one of many crowdfunding services focused entirely on helping Americans defray the costs of their health care by appealing to the kindness of strangers. McFarland, like many Americans who suffer from rare and expensive diseases-or those who simply cannot afford the associated and unexpected costs that accrue from the most mundane ones-has been trying to use her face and name to fund her care for years now. Or at least change other Americans' hearts." Maybe if I put a human face and voice on it, give them something they can really recognize, like their daughter, or their niece, then maybe it would change their heart. "If they're going to do this, if it's going to possibly kill me in the next couple years without health care, I have to get my story out and my face out when I can. On MSNBC the next day, she explained her thinking. McFarland's stance garnered immediate and widespread attention, with coverage across cable news. Momentarily abashed, he made a half-hearted stab at addressing the question, assuring her, in what has become the mantra for Republicans dead set on dismantling a program that, while imperfect, increased the number of insured Americans by around 20 million (or is it 30?), that he wants to make sure all Americans have access- access- to affordable care. So my question is, will you commit today to replacement protections for those Arkansans, like me, who will die or lose their quality of life, or otherwise be unable to be participating citizens trying to get their part of the American dream? Will you commit to replacements in the same way you've committed to repeal?"Ĭotton thanked McFarland for her question, then moved on, the crowd erupting in boos. Without the protections against lifetime coverage caps, I will die. ![]() "Without the coverage for pre-existing conditions, I will die," she told him. Suffering from a genetic disorder called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, McFarland, who has trouble even walking or standing without severe pain and sometimes blackouts, summoned her strength to ask the senator point blank: Did he intend to leave her behind? She was nervous because of the size of the crowd, she told me a few weeks later, but also because Cotton "is a Republican, Tea Party senator, and I am like this liberal Episcopalian, borderline socialist person." McFarland, a 25-year-old photographer and student at the University of Arkansas, waited for her turn at the microphone to confront Cotton. In truth, they represented what has become an all-too-typical strain of worry: People legitimately frightened about what will happen to them if they get sick, or-as in the case of Kati McFarland, a constituent of Cotton's at the meeting-if coverage for a pre-existing, life-threatening condition is eroded. Many Republicans, like Utah's Jason Chaffetz, the House Oversight Committee chairman, dismissed the crowds as disingenuous paid protesters. The capacity crowd bristled with energy and frustration, in the type of scene that became common throughout the country last month, when angry voters demanded answers from their representatives about what a long-promised plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act would actually look like. In late February, Senator Tom Cotton stood before his constituents at a town hall meeting at Springdale High School in northwest Arkansas and attempted to explain why the free market won't necessarily kill them. ![]()
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