In the Capitol rotunda, a person sitting on a red mobility scooter hold a sign that reads “Medicaid = Life 4 Disabled.” They are part of a group of people packed close together, some using mobility devices, one holding a cane for visually impaired wayfinding, and others standing. Capitol police in duty uniforms are in the foreground between the camera and the protestors. Bundles of zipties hang from their belts.
As you may know, the US is in the midst of the Republican party’s long-promised efforts to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare. Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill called the American Health Care Act (aspects of which were previously covered by Rory Kraft here and here and in a post by the Editor at IJFAB Blog). After weeks of closed-door Senate negotiations, the text of the Senate bill has just been released, and includes serious cuts to the healthcare safety net program Medicaid, which provides care for low-income persons and disabled folks in the US. The Senate bill has been renamed the Better Care Reconciliation Act.
Today, activists organized by ADAPT–ADAPT is an advocacy group for disabled persons that has a long history of protesting for policies that de-institutionalize persons with disabilities while still providing support for in-home adaptions and care–filled the halls of Congress outside Republican Congressional leader Mitch McConnell’s offices, chanting against cuts to Medicaid. The protesters clogged the hall with their bodies and assistive devices, including wheelchairs, before they were carried away by police, often with two or three officers per person carrying uncooperative, unruly bodies.
This montage is of 2 photos of a young woman in a wheelchair. She has red shoulder length hair and glasses. In one, she is shouting while being wheeled out of the rotunda by police. In the other, a police officer is standing behind her and she is smiling at the camera. Her shirt, with an American flag on it, reads “Our homes, not nursing homes.”
Three uniformed police officers carry a woman bodily away from a protest in the Capitol building. She is wearing tiger-striped hot red and black and yellow slippers, fuzzy multi-colored jaguar-print pants, a green t-shirt, and has a pack hanging from her neck. She has short-cropped grey hair, glasses, and is shouting. She does not appear to be resisting, but she is certainly not helping. The officers carrying her are all wearing latex gloves. One officer holds each of her arms, and one holds both of her legs. Behind the 4 individuals, photographers are clustered with still and video cameras.
Many argued that disabled people and low-income folks will suffer greater mortality and morbidity because of the proposed cuts, while wealthy individuals will receive a tax cut. ADAPT’s press-release on the issue is worth copying in full for your consideration.
WHO: ADAPT
WHAT: ADAPT is staging a Die-in at Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell’s office
WHERE: 317 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
WHEN: Thursday, June 22, 2017
Disability Advocates Protest Senate Leader Over Cuts to Medicaid for Millions of
Elderly and Disabled Americans
June 22, 2017, Washington D.C.
Today, about 60 members of the national disability rights organization ADAPT are staging a Die-in at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. Advocates are protesting McConnell’s Senate healthcare bill, demanding he bring an end to attacks on disabled people’s freedom which are expected in the bill. “The American Health Care Act caps and significantly cuts Medicaid which will greatly reduce access to medical care and home and community
based services for elderly and disabled Americans who will either die or be forced into institutions,” said Bruce Darling, an ADAPT organizer taking part in the protest. “Our lives and liberty shouldn’t be stolen to give a tax break to the wealthy. That’s truly un-American.”
“Not only will AHCA take away our freedom,” said Dawn Russell, an ADAPT organizer from Colorado.“That lost freedom will also cost Americans much more money. The nursing facilities that people will be forced into are much more expensive than community-based services that AHCA would cut.” In 2012, the National Council on Disability (an independent federal agency that makes policy recommendations to the President, Congress and federal agencies) reported that States spent upwards of $300,000 more per person serving disabled people in institutions each year than they would spend providing equivalent services in the community.
The protest falls on the 18th anniversary of Olmstead v. LC the 1999 Supreme Court Ruling which first recognized disabled people’s right to live in the community. ADAPT organizer Nancy Salandra of Pennsylvania was quick to note the connection between that case and the AHCA. “We fought so hard to have our right live in the community recognized and here we are 18 years later and we are still fighting for our freedom from incarceration.” As they dramatize the deaths AHCA’s cuts and forced institutionalization will cause, and as Capitol Police close in, the advocates who came to McConnell’s office from across the country chanted “I’d
rather go to jail than die without Medicaid!”
“To say people will die under this law is not an exaggeration,” said Mike Oxford, an ADAPT organizer from Kansas. “Home and community based services are what allow us to do our jobs, live our lives and raise our families. Without these services many disabled and elderly Americans will die. We won’t let that happen.” On the 15th anniversary of the death of Justin Dart, the father of the ADA, his words ring true “get into politics as if your life depends upon it, cause it does.” ADAPT’s history, the issues we are fighting for and our activities can be followed on our web site at www.adapt.org, our ADAPT Facebook page and on Twitter – look for #ADAPTandRESIST
Today, we have a link roundup on this breaking news, and we will have more on the impact of this bill on disabled persons tomorrow. To learn more, click through and read on.
- People with disabilities will pay for the GOP’s Medicaid cuts. (provides the most background of all of these links on the history of funding for care for the disabled and the fight to change policy to center the needs of persons with disabilities)
- The Better Care Reconciliation Act: The Senate bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, explained (a decent quick-take on major aspects of the Senate bill, which does differ somewhat from the House AHCA; both have steep cuts to Medicaid and arguably the Senate’s are, in total, more damaging)
- More than 50 people with disabilities arrested after protesting in D.C.
- And from earlier in the day, Dozens arrested after disability advocates protest outside McConnell’s office
- ‘No Cuts to Medicaid’: Disabled protesters carried away from McConnell’s Office (includes video of protests)
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