Coming off chemotherapy cancer treatment, Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera understands the plight of Americans who have a hard time getting and paying for health care.
Rivera said Tuesday he hopes that whomever is elected the next president of the United States does something to address health care costs.
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“I don’t know who the President is going to be, but I will say this, having gone through what I’ve gone through in the last probably 12 weeks from my diagnosis: we need to have some form of Affordable Care Act. I don’t care if it’s a Republican or a Democrat,” Rivera said.
“I think there’s a group of Americans that need to be covered, that need to have the benefit of that, and we need to figure it out quickly. Because I’m serious. I saw what it costs, I saw what it means. I’m very fortunate that I’m under the NFL medical plan, the one that [Washington owner Dan] Snyder has set up for our team. But I can only imagine what it is for Americans who don’t have it. And for us to be one of the richest countries in the world and not have a good medical plan for our citizens is disappointing.”
Rivera was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma–a form of skin cancer–earlier this year and was coaching games in between treatments. He recently ended treatments and talked about being able to ring the bell to signal his treatments were over.
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“But ringing the bell and really thinking about how much I did accomplish, the things that we did accomplish,” he said. “Knowing that we were fortunate we caught it or knowing that we had a plan and a good group of doctors behind us, hoping now that I’m in the recovery phase that the medicine that’s in me continues to do its job and finish off the cancer. Then, when I start getting my checkups, my PET scan in January, that everything is fine.
“I’m still going through the process,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m not getting the treatments anymore and that really, honestly is a relief.”
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Rivera will lead Washington against the New York Giants on Sunday.
