Disability advocates arrested protesting GOP Medicaid cuts

Twenty-six people, some with physical disabilities, were arrested by Capitol police while protesting Republican efforts to gut Medicaid on Tuesday night.

All week, House Republicans have been finalizing a reconciliation bill that aims to cut $625 billion from the health care program by imposing work requirements and limiting the federal funding provided to states for Medicaid.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that about 7.6 million Americans would lose their health insurance under the proposal.

“People feel very strongly because they know they’re losing their health care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), who was present during the arrests.

The protests were partially organized by ADAPT, a disability rights organization. Demonstrators, many of whom were in wheelchairs, lined the hallways of the U.S. Capitol and attempted to block lawmakers from entering the hearing room where the bill was being negotiated.

Capitol Police said in a statement that it is illegal to protest inside Congressional buildings.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that about 9.9 million Medicaid recipients qualify for the program because of a physical disability or mental health condition. That accounts for about 11% of all Medicaid recipients.

This likely represents only a portion of disabled people on Medicaid, since many others qualify for the program based on factors like income or other chronic health conditions.

In-home care for disabled people is one of Medicaid’s largest expenditures.

“I’m weary of fighting for the right to exist,” Julie Farrar, an ADAPT activist, told Politico. “We have been fighting for making the system better, and now we have an administration that completely wants to dismantle all of the spider web of support that we have.”

President Donald Trump explicitly promised on the campaign trail not to cut Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security. He repeated this pledge in February during an interview with Sean Hannity.

“Medicare, Medicaid—none of that stuff is going to be touched,” Trump said. “We won’t have to.”

The proposed cuts to Medicaid would help fund an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which primarily benefited wealthy people and big corporations.

ADAPT organized protests in the U.S. Capitol in 2017 when Trump and House Republicans were trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. That effort to repeal Obamacare ultimately died in the U.S. Senate.