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OC Residents Demand Answers From Local Reps On Future Of ACA

SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) – More than 100 people turned out Wednesday night in Santa Ana for what was billed as an emergency town hall meeting to ask their congressional representatives not to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Dozens of people came out to the Delhi Center hoping to get answers from U.S. Reps Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa; Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, and Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel. However, none of them showed up. The town hall was organized by several local and statewide organizations.

"My biggest concern is an insurance company's gonna say, 'I don't have to cover her anymore. There's no law telling us that we have to cover her,' " mother Angela Eilers said.

Eilers drove from Yorba Linda hoping her representative, Royce, would listen as she explained how her daughter's congenital heart defect makes her uninsurable if the ACA is repealed.

"I'm angry, I'm scared, I'm worried," Eilers said. "And I feel like no one's listening. I have contacted my rep every single day since the election, and I have not got any answers."

Town hall organizers claimed that 4 million Californians are at risk of losing their health-care coverage if Obamacare is repealed, including 250,000 in Orange County.

Eiler says her daughter's upcoming third surgery will cost $250,000, a price tag she won't be able to afford without insurance.

"We can't be quiet, we can't sit by and hope someone's gonna do it for us," Eilers said. "We need to do it for ourselves."

Some of the groups who organized the town hall included the Children's Partnership, Santa Ana Building Healthy Communities, the California Immigrant Policy Center and the Children's Health Initiative of Orange County.

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