On March 24th, Congress was set to take a vote on the repeal-and-replacement of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) with the American Health Care Act (AHCA). As the time for the vote approached, House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill from the floor. We applaud his decision to revisit this act and its design and encourage him and others in government to thoroughly vet their new design with experts and analyze the impact of their recommendations on all populations.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle and in many corners of government critiqued the replacement act as being unsound in design, lacking supporting data, and having a detrimental fiscal impact. The removal of the act was in response to and on behalf of their constituents. Constituents like you.

They heard you because you spoke up.

In one example, Illinois Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi reports that he received 1,959 calls from his district against AHCA, with only 30 in favor. This happened all over the nation: voicemail inboxes were filled with messages and townhalls were crowded with American citizens dissatisfied with the bill and letting their representatives know.

Your voice can affect policy. Your actions can affect Washington. You are an integral part of the democratic process.

Recently, the White House proposed an immediate cut of $1.2 billion to the National Institutes of Health and cuts to many other science programs around the nation. We covered why the initial proposed budget was so damaging to the protection of the American people; this funding cut only compounds those issues.

There’s much more you and we all can do. Oppose the proposed 2017 and 2018 budget and their drastic cuts to important, research-based federal agencies. Call your representatives and tell them what is worth protecting.

We’ve put together a short script to use in those calls:

My name is _____________, I am a constituent in ___________. I oppose the proposed 2018 budget, and the proposed funding cuts to the NIH in 2017.