(SitNews) Anchorage, Alaska - Alaska residents took to the streets Saturday in downtown Anchorage to ask Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan to do the right thing and vote “NO” on the senate healthcare bill under consideration. The March of the Walking Dead highlighted the life and death reality of this vote for Alaskan citizens from all walks of life. Supporters of the March say Alaska would be hard-hit by the proposed senate healthcare bill with an estimated $2,200 - $2,300 increase in health insurance premiums -- nearly double the next highest projection in the country.

Oli Schiess, a former Marine and resident of Eagle River, said, “This bill hurts Alaska more than any other state. It leaves veterans in the dust and it hurts so many. One cannot expect to take so much away from so many and have society not suffer as a whole.

Another attendee at Saturday’s event, Malena Marvin, a cancer survivor and small business owner from the Southeast Alaska town of Petersburg attended the event after a surgery earlier this week, agreed and stated, “We have to pull off the blinders and see that the Republican healthcare ‘repeal and replace’ would be a self-destructing circus act, if only we were willing to unite and fight for the common sense alternative.” 

The March of the Walking Dead in Anchorage Saturday followed a rally in Fairbanks on July 6th where Santa Claus, a North Pole city council member, asked Alaska's Senators to think about all the children in Alaska who rely on Medicaid when they vote on this bill.

Princess Daazhraii Johnson, an Alaska Native mother and Fairbanks resident who also participated in the Fairbanks rally, said “Without Medicaid the hospital bills of 3 months of NICU including 2 surgeries would have been over $1 million for my first born. Our Senators need to listen up and vote against this bill that would be detrimental for so many Americans!”

Anchorage participant George Sookiayak, a 36 year Alaska Native, originally from Shaktoolik, who lives and works in Anchorage for an Alaska Native Corporation, said, “I’m an Alaska Native voter who has first-hand recognized how accessible health care benefits Alaskans, that right should not be just for myself but for all people. Affordable and accessible healthcare contributes towards a better people.”

Anchorage participant Daryl Nelson, a person with a disability from Chugiak said, “There are more people with disabilities who could be and who want to be working if they had access to affordable and quality healthcare coverage.”

Another Anchorage participant, Genevieve Mina, a student at UAA, said, “I know so many students who now have insurance because they or their parents are covered through the ACA exchange. A loss of coverage by passing the Senate bill would disrupt the health care of our next generation.”

Editing by Mary Kauffman, SitNews

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