Ady Barkan refused to let A.L.S. stop him from pursuing his progressive ideals, and as a result, he became America’s most well-known healthcare advocate. You might be curious about Ady’s life prior to A.L.S., disease diagnosis, and current health.

Ady Barkan is a liberal activist and lawyer in the United States. He co-founded the Be a Hero Political Action Committee and worked as an organizer with the Center for Popular Democracy, where he led the Fed Up campaign.

Barkan rose to prominence after a chance encounter with then-Senator Jeff Flake, whom he urged to vote against tax cuts that would risk his and millions of others’ access to health insurance.’

After being diagnosed with the incurable neurological disease in 2016, Barkan was dubbed “America’s most powerful activist.”

In 2020, he was named to Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most powerful people.

The documentary ‘Not Going Quietly,’ which released in 2021, analyzes the irony of the lawyer’s A.L.S. diagnosis: as he grows weaker, his voice as a healthcare reform advocate grows louder.

Not Going Quietly: Ady Barkan Before A.L.S.

Ady Barkan was born to his immigrant parents from Romania and Israel on December 18, 1980.

He went to Claremont High School, where he developed an early interest in progressive action, such as the struggle against anti-gay laws.

Barkan then went to Columbia College, where he studied under economists Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs and graduated with honors in 2006.

He then went to Yale Law School, where he graduated with a J.D. in 2010.

Barkan served as the communications director for Democrat Victoria Wells Wulsin’s longshot and ultimately unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat in a heavily Republican Cincinnati district between undergraduate and law school.

Following law school, Barkan worked on immigrant legal rights in New York before clerking for Judge Shira Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Barkan is employed by the Center for Popular Democracy (C.P.D.).

He started the Fed Up campaign in 2012 to lobby the Federal Reserve about the impact of monetary policy on low-income individuals.

Fed Up organized demonstrations at the Federal Reserve’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to reduce interest rate hikes and modify the Federal Reserve’s governance structure more widely; by 2014, the group had been included to the annual meeting’s agenda. View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ady Barkan (@adybarkan)

Ady Barkan Disease Diagnosis And Health Now

Barkan, now 37, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., shortly after the birth of his first child in 2016, and only weeks before former President Donald Trump was elected.

Barkan was given three or four years to live when he was diagnosed. His condition has no treatment, although people with A.L.S. have a wide range of life expectancies.

Barkan claimed his world came apart when he learned of his fatal condition for the first time.

As the significant medical expenses started to pile up, he felt compelled to take action against what he believes is a broken healthcare system in the United States.

Barkan took action as his A.L.S. worsened, rendering him immobile and unable to communicate. He utilized his ill body as a weapon in the struggle for healthcare rights.

Barkan eventually had a tracheostomy surgery to allow a ventilator to breathe for him.

At present, he depends on a ventilator to breathe and relies on 24-hour nursing care at his home in Santa Barbara.

The health activist uses a technology that allows him to type controlled by his eye moments, finally delivering into an audible sound. View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ady Barkan (@adybarkan)

Is The Death Rumor Of Ady Barkan Authentic?

Ady Barkan is still alive, advocating for healthcare, which renders the rumor of his death to be false.

Even though he was revealed of the remaining three-four years of life expectancy, he has not died yet.

Moreover, Ady’s advocacy has centered on health care since 2017, marshaling his emotional paralysis from A.L.S. to persuade Americans to demand more from our government.

Barkan has an official Instagram account with the user name of @adybarkan, where he has garnered 22.6k followers.

He is constantly found sharing posts of his activism, his wife Rachel, and his kids, Willow and Carl.

Ady Barkan Net Worth

Ady Barkan is one of the richest Lawyers & listed as the most popular Lawyer. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Ady Barkan’s net worth is approximately $1.5 Million.

He graduated from Columbia University cum laude in 2006. He later earned his J.D. from Yale Law School in 2012.

Barkan works for the Center for Popular Democracy. Beginning in 2012, he developed the Fed Up campaign to advocate with the Federal Reserve for the impact of monetary policy on low-income people. Organizing protests at the Federal Reserve’s annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed Up sought to slow the raise of interest rates and more broadly change the governance structure of the Federal Reserve; by 2014, the group was included in the annual meeting’s agenda.

Barkan is married to Rachael King, an English professor. King and Barkan, who met as undergraduates at Columbia, have two children: a son, born in 2016, and a daughter, born in 2019. They live in California.