WARREN -- Democratic leaders from Michigan and around the country led a fiery "Save Our Healthcare" rally on Sunday, Jan. 15 at Macomb Community College.

U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, and U.S. Reps. John Conyers, Dan Kildee, Debbie Dingell, Brenda Lawrence, and Sandy Levin led the rally against repealing the Affordable Care Act.

"Republicans, you're not going to destroy the Affordable Care Act," said Sanders, D-Vermont. "This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and it's time to get our national priorities right. We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare as a right.

"This is the beginning of the fight, and not the end. If you want to improve the ACA, then let's work together. But, if you think you can throw millions of health care coverage away, then you've got another thing coming."

Sanders went on to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, saying "of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants Obamacare repealed and replaced, with Republicans in Congress taking the first step in this process in the last week.

The Associated Press reports that a timetable to repeal and replace is uncertain, but Republicans want to move as "quickly as possible."

This Michigan rally was one of 70 taking place Sunday from Maine to California, according to the U.S. Senator from Vermont.

Members of the large crowd at the Warren rally waved signs, chanted "Bernie" and cried "save our healthcare."

Some of the signs read "Fake Tan, Has No Plan," "My doctor won't accept tweets as payment," "Killing Obamacare kills people like me," and "One question: Can I keep my plan?"

Democratic leaders said they were willing to work across the aisle, but that if Republicans try to repeal the ACA, they have "another thing coming."

"Michigan is ground zero for healthcare," Schumer said. "Before the Affordable Care Act, our system was a mess. We're always looking at making it better, but we sure as hell are not going to repeal it ... especially without a plan to replace it."

Schumer, D-New York and Senate Minority Leader, said that what the Republicans are trying to do is the equivalent to "blowing up an apartment complex and putting nothing in its place."

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, who also took part in the rally, called attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act attacks on women, "plain and simple."

She noted that after Trump won the presidency, calls for IUD birth control devices "to last the entire Trump presidency" went up 900 percent.

Mark Heller, a civil rights, immigration and labor attorney, told the Associated Press that he drove from Toledo for the gathering, but said stopping Republicans from repealing the Obamacare may take more than attending rallies.

"I think that it's going to take civil disobedience to turn this around, because they have the votes in both the Senate and the House, and the president," he said.

Dingell, D-Dearborn, said the fight isn't about words, but about "real people and their lives."

Kildee compared the move to repeal the ACA to the political missteps that poisoned Flint's water supply.

"This right here is what this fight is all about," he said. "Not red or blue, Republican or Democrat, but about life our death.

"We can afford to provide healthcare for everyone, but we cannot afford to be the ones that don't."