Medicare for All activist Ady Barkan calls video shared by congressman ‘manipulated’

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - When Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise posted a video of Ady Barkan interviewing Joe Biden, Barkan said it was "manipulated."

His opinion piece titled "Congress Must Be Clear: No Doctored Videos" was published in The New York Times on Sept. 3.

The video appears to show Barkan asking Biden, "Do we agree that we can redirect some of the funding for police," but Barkan said he never included the final words: for police.

Barkan, a lawyer and activist who lives with his wife and son in Santa Babara has ALS and uses Augmentative and Alternative Communication known as ACC.

On Sept. 6, Barken shared this comment with NewsChannel 3:

"I was glad Vice President Biden agreed to sit down with me for the final episode of Uncovered, a series of conversations I’ve been having over the past year with presidential candidates about life, politics, and health care policy.

As I wrote in the piece, I was really disturbed by the implications of Rep. Scalise’s manipulation, because to me, it’s the latest sign that right-wing discourse and rhetoric is becoming wholly unattached from facts. It’s also genuinely offensive to millions of people like me who communicate through AAC, and an elected official with that much power should know better.

As for how we get through the information bubbles, I think the only way is for people to share their stories, and their perspectives. I’ve said this before, but even when people can disagree with Medicare for All in the abstract, they can’t disagree with me describing my experience of the health care system in America. They can’t disagree with my experience of a health care system that doesn’t cover long term care, forcing people with ALS to live dramatically shorter lives than in countries like Japan. We need more of that, and we need real policy action from our government too, to regulate the information marketplaces online."

Ady Barkan