Last week, our member Renee Yarrington from Dover, DE spoke at the We Power Care Dinner hosted by the Care Can’t Wait coalition at the AFL-CIO Headquarters in DC about why Medicaid, paid leave, and child care are important to her family. Here is her story:

It’s an honor to be here tonight among so many amazing parents, caregivers, care professionals, and care champions. 

My name is Renee Yarrington. I’m a nurse, a caregiver, and the mother of two children with disabilities—one who is Deaf and medically complex, and another who is dyslexic. I’m also part of the sandwich generation, caring for both my children and my aging family members.

Tonight, I’m not here just as a mother or a nurse—I’m here as evidence. Our stories are not anecdotes. They are policy in practice. They are the lived experiences behind the legislation you consider every day.

When I sat with Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester at my kitchen table last fall, what started as a conversation about policy such as childcare costs, medicaid cuts, and elder care, quickly became a conversation about shared experience. Like me, she is the oldest of three. Like me, she has experienced the loss of a parent. Like so many of us, she understands what it means to be stretched between generations—physically, emotionally, and financially. We talked about the impossible choices families like mine face every single day:

Pay the rent or pay for therapy.
Work overtime or stay home to provide care.
Drive four hours to see a specialist because local access doesn’t exist.

We talked about my daughter Aribel, who depends on Medicaid for hearing aids, ASL instruction, weekly infusions, occupational therapy, and speech. When she has recurring ear infections and can’t wear her hearing aids, ASL becomes her only access to language. Her only way to connect with the world.

Cuts to Medicaid, paid leave, and child care don’t exist in a vacuum—they land in real homes like mine. And they have consequences.

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That’s why storytelling matters.
Because behind every policy decision is a person.
Behind every budget line is a child.
Behind every funding delay is a family forced to stretch, sacrifice, and survive without the support they deserve.

Right now, proposed cuts to Medicaid and child care aren’t abstract—they are direct threats to the lives of children, seniors, and people with disabilities. In this climate of division and disinformation, storytelling is how we fight back.

Because:
1. Policy has faces—not just figures.
2. Stories pierce through political noise.
3. They create moral clarity and force accountability.
4. They reveal systemic failures and build collective power.
5. And they determine how history will remember this moment—and who had the courage to show up.

I’m honored to be a voice alongside all of you, and grateful for the chance to share our stories tonight. I know together, we are an unstoppable movement for investments in high-quality child care, elder care, health care, paid leave, and living wages for care workers. After all, our families, communities, and economy depend on these solutions. 

As Plato once said “ Those who tell the stories rule society.”
Thank you

Do you have a Medicaid story? We want to hear from you! Tell us your experience here.

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