This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act.

Millions of Americans are already benefitting from our new health reform law. In the months ahead, even more of us will benefit if it improves care coordination, provides more preventive services, and makes coverage more affordable and secure. It only gets better from here.

That is, if we give reform time to work — and work together to make sure it gets implemented effectively.

Together, we’re working to build better care — care that is better coordinated, more centered on meeting the needs of patients, and more affordable. That's why I'm asking you to encourage the Senate to stand strong against efforts to repeal or defund health reform.

It’s time to move forward and fix our health care system.

We simply can’t afford to let anyone undermine our efforts to make America’s health care system work better for all of us — and especially for older adults, patients with multiple chronic conditions and their family caregivers.

Just ask Leslie Schlienger, a nurse from south Florida, who is working on the front lines.


Since graduating from nursing school in 1980, Leslie has been a head nurse in Veterans Administration and community hospitals, earned her certification in rehabilitation nursing and her master’s degree in nursing administration. For the last dozen years she’s been a home health nurse, and a critical part of her work is coordinating clients’ care with family, friends and medical professionals.

"The fragmentation of how care is delivered is a big issue," Leslie says. "Because of all the specialties, a single patient often has two or three physicians, and I’ve seen some with as many as seven or eight. Patients are overwhelmed by that. They’re lost in that system." (Read the rest of Leslie's story here.)


Now more than ever, we need better care coordination, improved communication among providers, medical records at our fingertips, and a system that doesn’t leave vulnerable patients and their family caregivers to fend for themselves.

To mark the one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and honor the millions of Americans working every day for better care, urge your Senators to focus on fixing our health care system and reject any attempts to repeal or defund health reform.

I’ve already sent my message to Congress. Please send yours now!

Sincerely,