Affordable Pennsylvania is launching its fifth accountability ad on Friday highlighting Rep. Scott Perry’s vote to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion.
Emily Stence’s life changed forever at the age of 12, when a tick bit her while she was hiking with a church group.
Stence got sick and continued to get sicker, but it took several years to receive a correct diagnosis. During that process it was revealed she had underlying immunodeficiency. She was eventually diagnosed with Lyme Disease and other tick borne illnesses. The years of infection caused permanent damage to multiple organ systems.
“When I was young, my medical bills, even though [my parents] had insurance through their employers, were just intense. My parents had to take out a home equity loan and tap into their retirement funds to pay for my medical bills,” Stence said.
Stence’s first hand experience of the medical system is why she’s stepping up and speaking out in an ad against US Rep. Scott Perry (R-York) for his recent vote to cut Medicaid by $1 trillion and give tax breaks to the country’s wealthiest billionaires.
Prior to voting for Trump’s Medicaid cuts, Perry claimed that those who need Medicaid will still be able to have their coverage because the cuts were aimed at eliminating fraudulent spending. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.5 million Americans will lose their coverage from the Medicaid cuts, including 340,000 Pennsylvanians.
“ There is already a stigma that people on Medicare, and especially Medicaid, face,” Stence, a Dauphin County resident, said in an interview. “That you are just abusing the system and that you’re not contributing to society and you’re just a drain and you’re not paying your fair share. For the Republican party to be speaking about Medicaid in the terms of fraud, waste, and abuse, I personally find it so offensive because the implication is that I am fraud, waste, and abuse.”
Stence’s ad is the fifth in a $4 million campaign from Affordable Pennsylvania looking to hold vulnerable Republicans accountable for supporting President Donald Trump’s economic agenda and the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, there are over 172,000 people in Perry’s district who are enrolled in Medicaid, and the Pennsylvania Policy Center, a progressive leaning think-tank, estimates that over 30,000 of these residents could lose their coverage.
At 33, Stence is still partially covered through her parents’ insurance coverage and uses Medicaid as a supplement to cover what her parents’ insurance cannot.
However, she’s unable to work 80 hours a month, which will be required for Medicaid recipients starting in 2027 under the new law, and is concerned about her future and how she’ll get coverage when her parents retire in the next few years.
“ I know that as a disabled individual, it seems as though not as many of the cuts will affect me, but even what we have read, the language is very unclear and leaves a lot of room for uncertainty,” Stence said.
“It’s just very anxiety provoking. My parents have sacrificed so much for me I don’t want my mother to not be able to retire because Medicaid is uncertain.”
Update: This article was updated to clarify Stence’s illness. We are sorry for the misunderstanding.
