It didn’t take long for the National Council for Behavioral Health to realize that the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was an existential threat to its mental health and addiction center members, and their Medicaid clients. Aaron Cohen PR devised a storytelling strategy to persuade legislators that their actions would do more harm than good to Medicaid recipients.

We mined the Council’s members for patient stories and met Samuel and Ornella, both from D.C., and Jessica from New Jersey. Their narratives, plus our relationships with the right reporters, were the essential ingredients in USA Today, NPR and Vox.com stories placed at key points in the congressional debate.