Laura Packard (born May 23, 1976) is an American health care activist and political commentator. She is the founder of Health Care Voices, a non-profit grassroots organization for adults with serious medical conditions. She is executive director of the group Health Care Voter, with actress

Alyssa Milano Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972) is an American actress. She has played Samantha Micelli in '' Who's the Boss?'', Jennifer Mancini in ''Melrose Place'', Phoebe Halliwell in ''Charmed'', Billie Cunningham in ''My Name Is Earl'', Savan ...

, singer

T-Boz Tionne Tenese Watkins (born April 26, 1970), better known by her stage name T-Boz, is an American singer and actress. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Watkins rose to fame in the early 1990s as a member of the girl-group TLC. She has won four Grammy Aw ...

, politicians

Donna Edwards Donna Fern Edwards (born June 28, 1958) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2008 to 2017. The district included most of Prince George's County, as well as part of Anne Arundel County. She is a member of the D ...

and Anton Gunn, activists

Ady Barkan Ady Barkan ( he, עדי ברקן; born December 18, 1983) is an American lawyer and liberal activist. He is a co-founder of the Be a Hero PAC and is an organizer for the Center for Popular Democracy, where he led the Fed Up campaign. Barkan con ...

and

Brad Woodhouse Brad Woodhouse is an American Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party activist who currently serves as the president of Protect Our Care, a group seeking to protect the Affordable Care Act. He also serves as co-chair of the Health Care Vo ...

, and others as co-chairs. Packard is also executive director of Get America Covered, a group that promotes increased health coverage. She hosts a weekly call-in television show for Americans with health care and health insurance questions on act.tv, Care Talk. Packard was a featured speaker at the

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with Joe Biden. A self-employed small business owner, she was diagnosed with Stage 4

Hodgkin Lymphoma Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a type of lymphoma, in which cancer originates from a specific type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, where multinucleated Reed–Sternberg cells (RS cells) are present in the patient's lymph nodes. The condition wa ...

in 2017. Believing that the

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...

saved her life and that without it she would be bankrupt or dead without the care she received through her insurance, she became an outspoken critic of repeal attempts. Her sharp questioning led

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to eject her from a public event, and her criticism of President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

resulted in him blocking her on

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. A 2018 lawsuit,

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, forced President

to reinstate her access to his social media accounts, along with that of 40 others. Packard spoke on four national bus tours with progressive health care advocacy organization Protect Our Care in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022. Moving to Denver, Colorado in 2019, her political advocacy broadened to include challenges to

Cory Gardner Cory Scott Gardner (born August 22, 1974) is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician who served as a United States senator from Colorado from 2015 to 2021. A Republican, he was the U.S. representative for Colorado's 4th congressional distr ...

’s community engagement, and she went on a statewide bus tour with “Cardboard Cory” to accentuate his purported inaccessibility. She also challenged

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Lauren Boebert Lauren Opal Boebert ( ; ; born December 19, 1986) is an American politician, businesswoman, and gun rights activist. A member of the Republican Party, she serves as the U.S. representative for . From 2013 to 2022, she owned Shooters Grill, a ...

's health care record. and was blocked by Boebert on Twitter in February 2022. In 2018, Packard was noted for her outspoken opposition to the nomination of

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. She was included again in media coverage for her 2020 opposition to the nomination of

Amy Coney Barrett Amy Vivian Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972) is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth woman to serve on the court, she was nominated by President Donald Trump and has served since October 27, 2020. S ...

. She has appeared as an advocate on health issues on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and on Colorado Public Radio, among other media.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Packard, Laura Living people People from Colorado American political activists 1976 births University of Michigan alumni