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:。 Thanks for signing up!。 — NBC News (NBCNews) September 25, 2017。 — NBC News (NBCNews) September 25, 2017
。 Bill Cassidy is literally yawning as protestors are carried away. pic.twitter.com/TqiNKjrx6
。 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.。 A protestors looks on as other demonstrators are taken out.Credit: tom williams/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.。 With fewer services, advocates fear that folks with disabilities could be forced back into institutions and otherwise pushed out of the workforce.。 Wow. pic.twitter.com/VOlQHBksPy
。 Capitol Police arrest a demonstrator for reportedly disrupting the hearing.Credit: chip somodevilla/Getty Images。 — Jeff Stein (JStein_Vox) September 25, 2017
。 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。 Save Our Liberty! #ADAPTandRESIST pic.twitter.com/0V6GuserJ7。 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。 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.
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Organizers estimated that the number of arrests today would hover around 100.
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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/q5tgp4mi1。
— Jeff Stein (JStein_Vox) September 25, 2017。