Police arrest and remove protestors with disabilities at Senate Graham-Cassidy hearing
How do we say this nicely, Senator Cassidy and Senator Graham: everyone hates your dumb healthcare bill.
Well, at least a solid majority of Americans do, and pretty much everyone who came to watch the Graham-Cassidy hearing Monday afternoon. Activists from the grassroots disability rights group ADAPT disrupted the hearing multiple times, causing Senator Hatch to briefly recess the hearing and prompting Capitol Police to arrest protestors, some of them in wheelchairs.
Their protest centered around the large concern that passage of the bill would severely deplete medicaid funding. But many other worries exist about how the bill would not include essential health benefits, cause millions to lose their insurance, and shrink the Obamacare protections for people with preexisting conditions.
The footage of police forcibly removing the ADAPT protesters is both inspiring and predictably heartbreaking.
Here is Senator Hatch ordering that the hearing be recessed as protestors in wheelchairs are pulled away by authorities:
And Senator Cassidy responding with his characteristic charisma, aka a zombie-like yawn:
Under Graham-Cassidy, at least 1.4 million adults with disabilities would lose Medicaid, per the Center for American Progress. Depending on how deep the cuts go (and what version of the bill we're looking at) that number could easily climb to 1.8 million.
With fewer services, advocates fear that folks with disabilities could be forced back into institutions and otherwise pushed out of the workforce.
Organizers estimated that the number of arrests today would hover around 100.
ADAPT has a long history of disruptive protest in defense of people with disabilities. The group's grassroots efforts have been instrumental in bringing attention to issues across America for the past 40 years.
This isn't the first time Capitol Police have thrown activists with disabilities out of a hearing. In June, 43 demonstrators assembled by the organization were arrested outside of McConnell's office to protest cuts to Medicaid.
Senators McCain, Paul, Collins, and Murkowski have all expressed either opposition or extreme reservations about the bill, which was supposed to be scheduled for a vote sometime this week.
Topics Politics
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
