NEW VIDEO: Bev Veals Speaks Out About Demeaning Treatment by Tillis’ Office

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

September 10, 2020

NEW VIDEO: Bev Veals Speaks Out About Demeaning Treatment by Tillis’ Office

Veals: “I refuse to let somebody demean me to the point that my life is being compared to a dress shirt”

Raleigh, N.C. - In a new video released today, North Carolina resident and three-time cancer survivor Bev Veals speaks out about the Thom Tillis staffer who compared health care to buying a dress shirt and told her “if I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it.” Veals and her husband are at risk of losing their insurance because of pandemic-related job loss, and Veals is at high risk for coronavirus.

Follow-up reporting from HuffPost uncovered that when Veals asked the Tillis staffer to consider if it were his own parents on the verge of losing their health care, he responded that they would “gladly die if they couldn’t afford medical care.”

In the video, Veals describes her interaction with Tillis’ office and how his staffer’s callous comments made her feel as a cancer survivor who is struggling to hold on to her health insurance.

“It makes me feel unworthy of even being alive today,” Veals said. “But I am alive, and I have a grandchild now, and my kids have graduated high school. And I refuse to let somebody demean me to the point that my life is being compared to a dress shirt.”

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