Rusty Williams - WV Cancer Survivor

Speaker: Rusty Williams

Rusty Williams: Rolling back the Medicaid expansion or cutting funding will be absolutely devastating to thousands of West Virginians.

Rusty Williams: My name is Rusty Williams. I'm 46 years old and I live in Charleston, West Virginia.

Rusty Williams: When I was diagnosed with late-stage testicular cancer back in 2012, I didn't have health insurance or the means to pay for the emergency surgery they said I needed.

Rusty Williams: Trying to process everything that comes along with hearing the phrase, "You have cancer," that was bad enough. Couple that with trying to navigate our for-profit healthcare system, without insurance and without the means to pay for the treatment was one of, if not the most humiliating situations I have ever experienced in all my life.

Rusty Williams: After spending 6 weeks fighting bureaucrats when I should have been fighting cancer, and getting denied 3 times, I gave up. I was in excruciating pain, struggling mentally trying to process exactly, not just my situation, but the cruelty of how our for-profit healthcare system, was handling it And I was over it. And I called a family meeting and I let my people know that I wasn't gonna jump through any more of their hoops and my time here, was was very limited. Fortunately, my mom did not accept that and kept reaching out to anyone that would listen, and as a result of that advocacy, we were connected with the West Virginia Tiger Morton Catastrophic Illness Commission. And within a week of contacting the Commission I had Medicaid coverage: Surgery was scheduled and everything changed. And I'm not sure there's a proper combination of words in any language. to convey accurately what that felt like,

Rusty Williams: ...to know that coverage had been secured, surgery was scheduled, felt like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders and I was able to shift focus from the economics of navigating our for-profit healthcare system to getting healthy and getting through cancer.

Rusty Williams: Rolling back the Medicaid expansion or cutting funding will be absolutely devastating to thousands of West Virginians. It's no secret that West Virginia is one of the most economically depressed states in the country. It's also no secret that West Virginia also, is home to some of the hardest working people that you'll ever meet, you know there's a work ethic here that was cultivated from generations of struggle. You know, people here, they work their fingers to the bone to keep food on the table and to keep a roof over their heads. And now our congressional delegation wants to take away their healthcare

Rusty Williams: But these cuts affect real people here in West Virginia, and real people are going to suffer.