Hombre danny trejo trading in his machete for a spatula, opening up a series of l. A. Eateries. How he went from serving time to serving quesadillas. But first the nightline 5. Serving quesadillas. But first the nightline 5. Number 1 in just 60 seconds. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. Tonight the Republican Senate plan to repeal and replace obamacare has been declared a failure, prompting celebration from democrats, some conservative republicans, and oddly enough the legal sex workers of the nevada moonlight bunny ranch. It turns out these working women, like so many others, say they have a lot to lose with the repeal of the Affordable Care act. Heres abcs david wright with Proof Positive that politics makes for strange bedfellows. Reporter deep in the nevada desert the wild west is alive and well. This garish outpost on the old american frontier is a world away from washington, d. C. , but even here were going to go down there, and we are going to make our voices heard. Reporter theyre actively engaged in the debate. We have the same rights as everybody else. Yes, maam. Reporter so were in a stretch limousine with brothel owner dennis hof and some of the working girls from americas red light district in carson city, nevada. And were headed to the State Capitol for believe it or not a protest rally. Whoo honk if you Want Health Care for you and your children affordably. Reporter they call themselves hookers for health care. Prostitution is legal in much of this state, and these women are vocal. Demanding congress not take away Affordable Access to health coverage. Alice little is one of the founders. Hookers for health care. An unusual group. Hookers for health care is a microcosm of the macrocosm that is america. Really . We experience the same exact issues that every american does. Reporter today the hookers for health care are celebrating victory. Along with every other group that fought against the republican plan. I regret that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failures of obamacare will not be successful. Reporter senator Mitch Mcconnell came up two votes shy of the winning hand he needed to move this issue along. So the republican plan is now dead. One of the senators he failed to win over, nevadas own dean heller. I think our esteemed senator dean heller has got it right. Lets back off and watch this because its got to be good for everybody. Reporter brothel owner dennis hof says the women here have genuine concerns about the republican rush to repeal and replace obamacare. Youre a trump guy, right . Im a trump guy. Im a republican. What im really troubled with as a republican is weve had 7 1 2 years, david. They want this thing out for 7 1 2 years. How many times they brought it amongst the senators and the representatives to get this thing repealed. And they dont seem to have a plan. And they dont have a plan. What the heck are you thinking . Wake up. Reporter the hookers for health care arent just tarting up a Public Policy issue. Sure the sex here is a financial transaction. Thank you. Jimmy courtship reduced to picking your favorite out of the lineup. Hi. Im chance monet. Reporter the rest is pretty much a sure thing. The only real limits, your imagination, your morals, and your bank balance. Cheers. Reporter women here are independent contractors. They set the prices and theyre free to say no to any customer they dont want to be with. They share half their take with the house. But when it comes to Health Insurance, they dont have much choice. Do you have Health Insurance . I do. And heres the thing. I get it through the university. And i always have. Reporter Christina Parreira is a ph. D. Candidate in sociology at the university of nevada las vegas doing her dissertation on prostitution. Her research firsthand by working in a brothel and interviewing her coworkers. Many of them dont have the topquality Health Insurance she has. Im sure theres going to be people who would say if you have trouble getting Health Insurance because youre a prostitute get another job. Right. What would you say . What we do is real work. Sex work is work. Right. We pay taxes. We have families. We work hard. Theres no difference between this and any other Service Labor job. Does it not worry you that this job might put you at risk . Every profession has its own associated risk. Prior to this i was a jockey. And my risks were falling off of the horse, getting a concussion, or potentially getting killed. Thats certainly a highrisk profession and yet no one would begrudge a Jockey Health care coverage. In fact, youd think they were foolish not to have it, right . Oh, absolutely. Jockeys have to have insurance. Its incredibly important. Id say its my right and my body. I can do whatever i so choose with my body so long as im consenting, im healthy, and im happy with what i do. This is the worlds oldest profession. Reporter ironically, what puts them at risk isnt the moral stigma attached to what they do. Its the fact that theyre selfemployed. In america millions of others doing very different work face a similar predicament. I pay taxes. I lead a fairly normal life. I teach. I have students. And im also a legal working girl. And im proud of what i do. There are also practical arguments that say that engaging in highrisk behavior should have consequences. You know, maybe you should pay higher premiums for your Health Insurance. To some extent i do agree with it. Im a little on the fence about it, right . To be honest. But again, when youre talking about legal prostitution, we arent at risk. Reporter by state law these women are tested weekly for stds. All right. All done. Reporter only if they have a clean bill of health can they continue to work. Turn right on west 5th street. Reporter they also rely on planned parenthood, also under threat from the republicans. Today alice little is taking 22yearold roxanne to planned parenthood. Got this. Reporter for her first pap smear. Ive got a lot of good information here. Reporter naturally they also pick up free condoms, also required under nevadas prostitution law. We have condoms in here as well as lube. This is my room, and this is where i stay most of the time. Reporter 42yearold shelby star is one of the stars of hofs love ranch. I have a guy coming in this afternoon. Wonderful. Reporter shes been doing this job for five years, earns upwards of half a Million Dollars a year. I had three parties in a row. And wow. Reporter and she needs the money. Shes the family breadwinner. Ive kind of been going through a little bit lately. For the past month ive been sick. And i went to the hospital. I had kidney failure, renal failure. Reporter her husband is sick too. Neither of their illnesses are related to her work. Do you have Health Insurance . I have Health Insurance. I have blue cross blue shield. But at the moment the state of nevada is not accepting blue cross blue shield. They dropped them. So im not really sure what im going to do. I mean, ive already gone through a month of being in and out of the hospital as well as my significant other. I may owe the whole entire bill, and his bills already over 700,000. Reporter because of preexisting conditions its unlikely they would qualify for insurance on an open market. You must be worried. Im very worried. I think if the insurance doesnt cover it im going to owe the rest of my life and leave my debt to my children. And that i dont want to do. Reporter around the pool at the end of the day a debate about the national debate. If i dont want to have Health Insurance, why should i be taxed . Reporter their points of view reflect conversations taking place across the country. How many of you guys have Health Insurance right now . Reporter harley is young and healthy. She resents having to pay the obamacare penalty for not having insurance. Paid a 3,000 fine last year because i dont have Health Insurance. I dont qualify for the Affordable Care act because of the amount of money i make and because i choose to be an independent contractor. Im going to embarrass you, dennis. You get half of what each of these girls do. Shouldnt you offer Health Insurance as a benefit . Well, you know what . Id like to, david. But theyre independent contractors. Theyre their own businesswomen. And the federal laws wont allow me to do that or i would go out and make a deal and try to help them with that. Theres nothing written down that allows independent contractors to receive coverage from an employer. Couldnt you form a union . Yes. Yes, we sure can. You know what . I want you to be the head of the union. Reporter right now nevada state laws regulate what they do and how they go about doing it. But the industry and the government give them no good options to protect themselves and their families. How worried are you about this whole debate . It could literally kill me. Im incredibly worried. I dont want to see my friends die. I dont want to see my family die. Its real and its personal. Its scary. Its worth talking about. And its worth fighting for. Reporter out here on the frontier they feel like theyre fighting for their lives. Im david wright for nightline in carson city, nevada. Next, a different breed of photographer on a mission to capture every living species in human care on the face of the earth. His life or death reasoning behind this project. Behind this project. Plaque psoriasis is not always easy. Its a longdistance run. And you have the determination to keep going. Humira has a proven track record of being prescribed for nearly 10 years. 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And no one knows this better than famed animal photographer joel sartore, whose images of threatened species have stirred governments into Wildlife Conservation efforts. Heres abcs gio benitez. Its like a 6,000 camera. Doesnt he know that . Hey, hey. Reporter getting that perfect shot isnt always easy. Just ask wildlife photographer joel sartore. Not a bashful bird at all. Ow. Thatll work. There. See how it all fits . I heard about a crane getting testy with you. There was a hornbill that was trying to draw blood a little bit. Done. Thank god. Reporter its all in a days work for sartores life work, his photo ark. The goal is to get all 13,000 or so species that are in human care. So were about halfway done now. 6,500 so far. Reporter sartores photos and how he captures them are the subject of new threepart pbs and pbs. Org series rare creatures of the photo ark. You call it rare. Mmhmm. Why . Were looking at some of the rarest creatures left on earth in this show. Reporter sartore and his team spent a year traveling to eight countries on five continents photographing these creatures in captivity. Oh, man, thats nice. Reporter the results are these stunning portraits on blackandwhite backgrounds. People want to know, well, why dont you do this in the wild all the time . Well, you cant just walk up to animals and put a black background behind them in the woods. Okay. Maybe you can. I cant believe were getting this. How long does it take you to photograph each one of these species . It its a bigger animal we generally have more time. We maybe have a half hour or so. Were generally good until the meat runs out. With birds, smaller animals in these little shooting tents, maybe its a 30second or a oneminute deal. Reporter some of sartores images have gone viral. In 2015 even projected onto major World Landmarks like the vatican and the empire state building. So right now youre shopping. I am. Im shopping. Reporter we met sartore at the bronx zoo in new york where he hopes to shoot one day for his ark. A lot of people will say wait a minute, this is about having animals in captivity. But you really see zoos and zookeepers as heroes. Oh, yeah. Zoos are heroes. And the people that work there. For sure. Zoos really are conservation centers. For many of the species that i photograph they only exist in zoos now. Theyre extinct in the wild. Reporter according to a new study by the National Academy of Sciences Earth is on the brink of its sixth mass extinction. Nearly 200 species have vanished just in the past century. A rate of about two per year. We are on track to lose half of all species by 2100 if not more. Half. Half. This is my desperate attempt to get people to pay attention. Reporter as a veteran National Geographic photographer for more than 25 years, people have been paying attention to his work. Joel, what do you think is the power of a photograph . I think they can elevate themselves to iconic status if theyre done well enough. Reporter in australia sartore says his photos of injured koalas helped prompt the Australian Government to recognize the species as threatened. A group of nurses at a Wildlife Hospital held back, i dont know, 20 koalas that had all been killed by dogs that week. So we spread them out on a blue tarp and we photographed that. Its a heartbreaking image. Oh, my god. Yeah. But it speaks to koalas not being able to fend for themselves against human intrusion. So we see results. Real results from these pictures. And thats very encouraging. Reporter sartore started the photo ark more than a decade ago when he was off the road taking care of his wife kathy and their three children. My wife got breast cancer, believe it or not, and she was on chemo and radiation for a year, and id never been grounded. Reporter his first photo was of a naked mole rat taken on the cutting board of the local zoo. You ready . Yeah, were ready. All right. Reporter today sartore often hijacks Family Vacations to find animals to photograph. Like he did two summers ago during an emotional shoot in prague. You had that Beautiful Image of the white rhino. And that white rhino you said died just days after you shot it. Yeah. The northern white rhino. Her name was nabire and she lived in the verekulave zoo in the czech republic. She was one of five left on earth at the time we photographed her, and she was very old. And she died about eight days later. Reporter today there are just three left in the world. Its the best rhino shoot ive ever had and the worst rhino shoot ive ever had. We have one. We got one . Yes. Reporter in rare sartore also seeks to show some of the worlds smaller threatened species like the lower keys marsh rabbit which is almost gone. He also goes on a taxing hike in cameroon looking for the rare crossriver gorilla, but instead he finds beetles in a pile of dung. This pile of poop make the whole hike worthwhile. People also say whats your favorite animal . And i say, well, the next one. Its the next one. No matter what. Reporter sartore says his project will take 25 years to complete. And really for you this isnt just a photo project. 100 a conservation project. Im not doing this just to have something to do till i die. Its 100 devoted to getting people to wake up and realize that as these species go away so could we. Were talking about the future of life on earth. Reporter for nightline im gio benitez in new york. And next, hes a hard man who serves soft tacos. How Actor Danny Trejo became a budding restaurateur. When youre close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment . If you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. Taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin. 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For the this. Internet for one everyday simple price and no extra monthly fees. And finally tonight, at these restaurants you do not want to send your food back. Heres abcs nick watt. One of the most recognizable faces in all of hollywood. Danny trejo. Kind of meanlooking. From dusk till dawn. Muppets most wanted. Spy kids. When people see me, guys will automatically go puff themselves up. And ive got to be hey, whats up . How are you doing . Because if i puff up too then weve got a problem. Reporter danny trejo Just Launched his third act. First prison followed by hollywood tough guy and now a smiling restaurateur helming an expanding successful empire. Thats pretty good. Yeah. Reporter so far two trejos tacos, two cantinas, a taco truck plus a brand new coffee and donuts place. We run out of donuts by about 11 00. Were done. Reporter how did this happen . Ash, the producer of a movie called badass that i did, he saw that i love food, and he said why dont you open a restaurant . I was expecting him to be unpleasant. No, hes the nicest guy in the world. He actually brought a business plan. Jeff and i worked on kind of a little presentation. This is what its going to be. Frankly his face is everything. Yeah. Thats what people recognize. Reporter his glaring visage. Remember him in heat . Why are you doing this . I like donuts, and i love the police. They told me a long time ago when i got out of the penitentiary, they said, remember, a busy man has time to do everything. Reporter hes now been clean over 40 years, works as a drug counselor. Got his hollywood break on runaway train in 85, landed a small role after a friend hired him to teach eric roberts how to box. Teach during the day. Youve got three minutes. Hi, buddy. Those are beautiful. I love danny trejo, talking trash one second, smiling at kids the next. Im nick watt for nightline in hollywood. It was danny trejo who said every good thing thats ever happened to me came out of helping others. Thank you for watching abc news. And as always, werenline at abcnews. Com and our nightline be a powerful force. Nature valley