Tennessee farmers to hold tractorcade march against Trumpcare June 28

[Tanuki]

This is sponsored by Protect Rural Tennessee


"THEY WERE ELECTED TO REPRESENT US
Tennessee’s small towns and rural communities are under threat from Washington policies that out of touch with the hopes and needs of rural America. Congress is about to pass a health reform law that will slash Medicaid funding that is vital to small town hospitals, nursing homes, drugstores and clinics. The Obamacare repeal law will force the closure of many of them. That will leave everyone in those communities with less health care, regardless of what kind of insurance they have.

32 hospitals across Tennessee are at risk of closing if Congress passes this law, known as the American Health Care Act. 23 counties would be left without any hospital. When a hospital or nursing home closes, many jobs are lost, and the entire local economy takes a hit. The AHCA will mean that in many rural communities people who are in an accident, have a stroke or suffer a heart attack will lose precious time reaching an emergency room, because their community’s hospital has closed. Cancer patients and their caregivers will have to travel farther for treatment. As local nursing homes close, frail seniors face painful separation from their loved ones, and less frequent visits.

When a community’s only hospital closes, doctors and nurses move to a city where they can care for their patients. It becomes impossible to recruit new employers, who won’t move to a place that cannot offer good health care.. Without job opportunities, young people leave for brighter prospects elsewhere. Vibrant communities fade away. Congress intends to use the AHCA to take money from healthcare to give tax breaks to the wealthiest taxpayers, and to corporations like insurance companies and drug companies. Those warped priorities will permanently damage small town America and a cherished way of life."

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The farmers will meet at the Christ Church parking lot at 900 Broadway in downtown Nashville on Wednesday June 28 at 12:30. There will be a rally and press conference, followed by a tractorcade around downtown and the Gulch. Note that the Facebook heading still says July 6, but the event will actually be June 28 due to the anticipated date of the vote.


https://m.facebook.com/protectruralTN/photos/gm.1533085086731146/116219992318191/?type=3&source=44

[tonyt53]

1. Odd that they are meeting at a church - thumpers voted for the GOP in droves.

Now they are rallying against a GOP bill? I'm pretty familiar with the area they are meeting at and wonder how they will get farm tractors to that location. Lawn mowing tractors maybe, but not farm tractors.

[Tanuki]

2. Christ Church is the Episcopal cathedral in Nashville. I don't think

they are what most would call "thumpers," and many of their leaders have denounced Trumpcare and other aspects of his agenda all along. They also have ample parking.

http://www.christcathedral.org/visitors/parking/
?w=2000

[Docreed2003]

3. Good for these folks...

Tennessee already has one of the highest rural hospital closure rates of any state in the US. From the list of affected hospitals that I saw, this bill would essentially leave the upper western corner of the state without access to hospital or ER care. In addition to rural hospitals, it's expected that at least two hospitals in Nashville that serve indigent communities would be forced to close as well.