Kenya Wheeler was Organizing for America's California Deputy Field Director in 2009-10 during the campaign to pass the Affordable Care Act (ACA). After returning to graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, he was diagnosed with CNS Lymphoma in October 2011. Kenya underwent brain surgery and six months of intensive chemotherapy, resulting in treatment costs exceeding UC’s $400,000 lifetime student medical benefit. After finishing treatment, he joined Doctors for America’s Patients over Politics bus tour in August 2012 to share his story from the RNC to the DNC to illustrate the need for the ACA. More recently, Kenya worked with UAW 2865 (representing UC Academic Student Workers) and the UC Students Association on a successful campaign to eliminate all UC student health insurance benefit caps. He works as a planning & community outreach consultant and is Doctors for America's California Deputy State Director.