How do fim 18we 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.
SEE ALSO: Hurricane Maria plunged Puerto Rico into a humanitarian crisis, and help has barely arrivedHere is Senator Hatch ordering that the hearing be recessed as protestors in wheelchairs are pulled away by authorities:
BREAKING: Senator Hatch orders Graham-Cassidy health care hearing to recess as protesters in wheelchairs are removed by authorities pic.twitter.com/St8sBGbzEn
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 25, 2017
And Senator Cassidy responding with his characteristic charisma, aka a zombie-like yawn:
Bill Cassidy is literally yawning as protestors are carried away. pic.twitter.com/TqINKjrLx6
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) September 25, 2017
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.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable 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.
Wow. pic.twitter.com/VOlQHBksPy
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) September 25, 2017
Capitol Police arrest a demonstrator for reportedly disrupting the hearing. Credit: chip somodevilla/Getty Images This is Marilee, of ADAPT. She's answered my random phone calls for 5 months pic.twitter.com/j26R5XwoJm
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) September 25, 2017
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.
Capitol police drag a blind protestor out of the hearing. Credit: chip somodevilla/Getty Images Only 7 wheelchair users in the hearing room! #ADAPTandRESIST pic.twitter.com/GBSgTHi5SW
— NationalADAPT (@NationalADAPT) September 25, 2017
Save Our Liberty! #ADAPTandRESIST pic.twitter.com/0V6GusErJ7
— NationalADAPT (@NationalADAPT) September 25, 2017
I've been covering health care activism from day one and this is a sight that is still hard to make sense of pic.twitter.com/gFaR6V0yHv
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) September 25, 2017
Latoya Maddox, 44, came from Philly for this. Said she was very nervous. Has a toddler with asthma who, like her, is on Medicaid pic.twitter.com/q5TggP4mi1
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) September 25, 2017
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.
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