| No Images? Click here  The Listen To America bus hit the road again this weekend to make the journey from Atlanta to Asheville. At 12 Bones Smokehouse in Asheville, Marina Fang met Rusty and Kimberly Heuer. They've lived in the nearby town of Waynesville, North Carolina, since 1999, and stumbled upon HuffPost's event while having lunch after Rusty's therapy appointment.They both wanted to talk about access to health care — particularly how their community will fare when the legislative battle to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act ends.Kimberly said they were lucky that Rusty's insurance covered a surgery to have a tumor removed from his brain. But she's worried about future cuts to coverage under Senate Republicans' proposed legislation."Almost everyone has a pre-existing condition," she said.Rusty said he wished lawmakers understood how their decisions on the national level affected people on a local level, and that they "could sit down and listen to each other, like you and I are right now."   On a frosty January evening, Nancy Kerr’s water broke. She and her husband battled treacherous conditions to make their way to the hospital.Because of the snowstorm, Kerr’s regular physician didn't get to the hospital in time to help her deliver. Instead, she gave birth under the guidance of the labor-and-delivery nurses who coached her through pushing — being mindful of the fact that the baby’s heart rate was dropping — while an emergency room doctor caught the newborn. Less than an hour after they arrived at the hospital, Kerr held a healthy baby girl in her arms.If the drive had been even a few minutes longer, Kerr is certain, she would have delivered her daughter on the side of a snowy, low-visibility road.And if she were giving birth this winter, the trip to the hospital would be significantly longer. The labor-and-delivery unit she visited will close at the end of September, the latest in a string of maternity ward closures that are leaving expectant mothers in the mountains of western North Carolina without access to maternal care within reasonable distances of their homes.HuffPost partnered with Carolina Public Press to look at how these closures in rural areas are affecting women. Contributor Hillary Brown writes:
  Rory Philbrick, 19, is fighting for equal rights in North Carolina — a state still grappling with the legacy of House Bill 2, a state law enacted in 2016 that prevented local governments from passing LGBTQ anti-discrimination policies and banned trans people from using the public bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.“Trans people are actual people,” he told HuffPost. “We actually exist. We’re not just mythical creatures, and we’re not just on TV or the news. We just want basic human rights. And not being nervous about going out at night would be nice.”  Come see us tomorrow, Charlottesville!We’ll be at the UVA McIntire Amphitheatre from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then at IX Art Park from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.Stop by, tell a HuffPost producer what’s on your mind and pick up some swag. We look forward to seeing you! Join us virtually on the bus! Ride along with our editor-in-chief, Lydia Polgreen, as she dispatches news from the road via Facebook Messenger.  Learn more about what it really means to be an American by signing up for our morning news brief.Did a friend send you this? Subscribe here. For more politics news, check out our HuffPost Politics email.©2017 HuffPost | 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 |
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