Healthcare Protesters Have Been Arrested On The Hill 500 Times Over The Past
Two Months
by
Julie Strupp
in
News
on Jul 26, 2017 2:28 pm
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adaptprotest1.JPG
Members of ADAPT, a disability rights group, protest in front of the Russell
Senate Office Building. (Photo by Julie Strupp)
Since the beginning of June, U.S. Capitol police have made nearly 500 arrests
of protesters rallying against cuts to the Affordable Health Care Act.
Each round of mass arrests might have earned significant coverage in a
different time, but they have registered as barely a blip in the frenetic news
cycle.
Still, a prominent disability rights group says they've won Herculean battles
before, and they're nowhere near giving up this fight.
Yesterday afternoon, following the Republican vote to advance their repeal and
replace health care bill to a debate, Capitol Police arrested 95 people.
Sixty-four of them were members of ADAPT, a formidable grassroots coalition
that has been fighting for disability rights since the 1970's. While a variety
of protesters and activists groups have been showing up at the Capitol, ADAPT
members have made up the vast majority of the arrests for protesting health
care repeal over the past two months.
“I’m here all week, I’m going to spend my time making my voice as loud as
possible,” says ADAPT member Daniel Kleinmann who was among the most recent
round
of arrestees. “It was very distressing to hear John McCain come back from
receiving exceptional medical care, which he requires to live, to then deny
fellow
Americans exceptional medial care, which they also require to live.”
Since Sunday, undeterred by the rain, ADAPT members have been camped out in
front of the Russell Senate Office Building.
On Tuesday, DCist found them holding signs and chanting, "Save our liberty,
don't cut Medicaid" and "don't kill us, kill the bill." A few protesters
carrying
mock gravestones straggled in from a nearby die-in in front of the Capitol
building, organized by the progressive lobbying group MoveOn. Drivers honked
in support of the activists, and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey Jr. came by
with stacks of pizzas in a gesture of solidarity.
healthcareprotestercancer.JPG
D.C. resident Cristina Villegas, a current breast cancer patient, says
Obamacare provisions incentivize doctors to reach out to patients to make sure
they
come in to do physicals every year. Her doctor caught her aggressive cancer in
an early stage, and she credits it with saving her life. (Photo by Julie
Strupp)
"We're living out here through a lot of rainstorms. We got soaked [Monday]
night," says Nancy Salandra, a Philadelphia resident who has been a member of
ADAPT for 25 years. "Down here over the last 24 hours, all kinds of people have
come up to us, thanking us [on behalf of] their kids with disabilities."
Salandra works at a center where many of her disabled clients depend on
Medicaid. She says many citizens with disabilities would lose access to
assistance
care that allows them to live independently if the Republican health care bill
goes through as it's currently written. Due to federal regulations, they
would be forced to live in a nursing home instead, which is typically much more
costly for taxpayers.
"Without services, if you have a child with severe disabilities, families break
apart. The stress on families is too difficult. Moms and dads need respite
care, they need counseling, they need services for their children and programs
to keep them alive and well. This will force parents to put them into
institutional
living because they're unable to give them the medical care they need at home,"
says disability rights activist Fran Fulton. "If this bill were to go through,
this means the care for people in nursing homes would go down even more."
acaprotesttimeline.jpg
Infographic by Julie Strupp
Since the beginning of May, Capitol Police say 494 people have been arrested in
the U.S. Capitol building for "Crowding, Obstructing, or Incommoding," and
we were able to account for 457—all of which were health care repeal protesters
in the months of June and July. Most were members of ADAPT, but other arrestees
included eleven clergy members.
ADAPT activists report they have also sometimes been charged with "Disruption
of Congress," and Capitol Police has not yet responded provided data about
how many people have been charged with this offense in the past few months.
"We generally come up here and make noise, and escalate when we're refused...if
we don't feel like we're being heard, we will make our presence known,"
says Kleinmann, who was also arrested with ADAPT at the FDA building this
spring. "We've turned up our ante on this. We pride ourselves on being
unpredictable,
and sometimes police handle that poorly."
Footage of protesters with disabilities, many in wheelchairs or using medical
devices,
being dragged out of the U.S. Capitol
sparked outrage earlier this month, but less has been reported about the
activist group behind the action.
ADAPT began in Denver, Colorado back in 1974, and since then chapters have
sprung up in at least 30 states around the country, including in Washington,
D.C. They're strictly grassroots ("If you try to sue us, you'll find there's no
one to sue," Kleinmann says) and don't have official leaders per se, yet
have been successfully lobbying for a variety of health and accessibility
issues in the past several decades.
One of their first successes was getting McDonalds to make their restaurants
wheelchair-accessible before it was federally mandated. ADAPT members still
stop by en masse on their way to protest for an "ADAPT steak" (aka a McDonalds
hamburger) in gratitude.
"We didn't ask to be put on Medicaid, let's just make that clear. We didn't ask
to be disabled. We were born with a disability and Medicaid was there to
take care of us when we were born, because a lot of us were supposed to die,"
says ADAPT member Latoya Maddox. "I had childhood epilepsy and a bunch of
other stuff that goes on with my body that I can't help. [Medicaid] is not a
luxury, it's a necessity. It helps us live our lives as civilized citizens."
bobcasey1.JPG
Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey Jr. came out to with stacks of pizzas for ADAPT
protesters Monday night. Casey has a history of supporting disability rights.
(Photo by Julie Strupp)
Don't underestimate people with canes and wheelchairs: physical disability
doesn't stop ADAPT members from engaging in civil disobedience. In fact, that's
kind of their modus operandi. One ADAPT member, an older woman with a traumatic
brain injury who uses a wheelchair and is affectionately called "Spitfire,"
said Tuesday she has been arrested for protesting 82 times over the years.
("It'll be 83 times if I'm arrested tomorrow," she chuckles.)
It was this group that convinced the federal government to make public buses
wheelchair-accessible—sometimes by physically lying in front of them in
protest—and
they're in full fight mode right now.
"I'm fighting for my rights, I don't want to be put in a nursing home. I have
my own home, but if Medicaid gets taken away I won't be able to get back into
it without proper services," says Michelle McCandless, another ADAPT member. "I
want to work. I don't sit around the house, I tutor children and help people
find resources. At one time I was homeless, so I've come a long way. I don't
want to wind up in a nursing home and wind up dead like many of my friends
have."
adaptprotesters.JPG
Members of ADAPT camp out in front of the Russell Senate Office Building in
protest. (Photo by Julie Strupp)
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Source:
http://dcist.com/2017/07/while_you_were_distracted_by_russia.php