Physical therapist Janet Tweed links daily patient care to family affordability, slamming Molinaro for touring the country to promote budget cuts that slash healthcare, food assistance, and Upstate community funding.
DELHI, NY — Physical therapist, local trustee, and Democratic candidate for New York State Assembly District 102 Janet Tweed released a campaign commercial titled "Healthy People, Stronger Communities," connecting her daily work in patient care directly to the economic and healthcare struggles facing rural Upstate families.
“When you work on the front lines of healthcare, you see firsthand how bad policy and unethical corporate influence hurt real people,” said Tweed. “Our neighbors don't need life-long career politicians looking for their next political stepping stone after losing a federal race. We need responsive representation focused on our local towns, our health, and our wallets.”
In the advertisement, now airing across digital and streaming platforms, Tweed introduces her campaign by speaking directly to the daily reality facing working families across the entire district, which includes all of Greene and Schoharie counties, the Albany County Hilltowns, and rural communities in Delaware and Otsego counties.
Tweed connects residents’ economic strain directly to the rural healthcare crisis. While Tweed is running to pass the New York Health Act to guarantee comprehensive coverage, expand school-based clinics, and recruit rural doctors through medical school debt relief, Marc Molinaro’s record shows a consistent pattern of voting to restrict healthcare access and gut essential funding. In Congress, Molinaro voted to block the Women’s Health Protection Act (H.R. 12) and backed H.R. 26 to impose criminal penalties on medical professionals. He voted repeatedly to block servicemembers from accessing reproductive healthcare, and during his earlier tenure in the State Assembly, voted against vital New York Medicaid funding for family care.
Most notably, Molinaro took to a national roadshow to actively promote the extreme "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA, see St. Cloud Times) — a federal blueprint that puts the solvency of rural Upstate hospitals in direct jeopardy through nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts and the gutting of Affordable Care Act coverage. The plan also enacts sweeping reductions to SNAP food assistance, hitting working families on both healthcare and grocery bills.
Addressing the political forces driving these cuts, Tweed asserts in the commercial: “Our political system needs to change: out with corporations and billionaires from politics.” While Tweed has pledged to reject corporate PAC money and protect rural communities from speculative, energy-heavy AI data centers that drive up local utility rates, Molinaro’s career on the public payroll has been heavily backed by corporate interests. In Washington, he voted for the Limit, Save, Grow Act (H.R. 2811), which would have cut public investments in local law enforcement grants, veterans support, and rural infrastructure. Back home as Dutchess County Executive, he initially drove up property taxes, and his later attempts to trim the levy never offset the higher baseline he created—leaving homeowners facing larger tax bills as assessments continued to climb.
Tweed concludes the commercial with a clear contrast between corporate politics and community needs: “In with universal healthcare and lower costs. That’s how we raise the bar for healthy people and stronger communities.”
The full commercial and platform details are available online at janettweed commercial
