D.C. sit-in protests Medicaid cuts
Published Oct 6, 2005 2:18 AM
Hundreds of activists with the disability rights group American Disabled
for Attendant Programs Today [ADAPT] descended on Washington, D.C., Sept. 17-21
to protest Medicaid cuts and demand housing and personal care for disabled
people. WW reporter Lou Paulsen interviewed Ed Hoffmans, 67, of Chicago, the
elected coordinator of Chicago ADAPT and a long-time member of
Workers World Party, about these activities.
WW:
What were the main issues in the protest?
Police move in to arrest disabled activists.
|
EH: We
were mainly protesting the planned cuts in Medicaid. In April, Congress passed a
budget resolution that would cut $10 billion over five years. It’s not a
binding resolution, but it shows what they intend.
Between 500 and 600 of
us were there, 12 from Chicago. The largest delegation was from
Kansas—they had 47. Most of us were wheelchair users.
On Sunday,
Sept. 18, we marched 5 miles from the hotel to Sen. [Bill] Frist’s house
and held a two-hour rally outside the fence. This was a record-setting longest
march for ADAPT.
What kind of house is it?
It’s a big
mansion! Then on Monday, the 19th, we committed civil disobedience, which was
really the focus for the trip. We held sit-ins in the offices of the Senate and
House leadership of both parties.
Which office were you
in?
Senator Grassley’s [Charles Grassley, R-Iowa]. He was the
only one who didn’t have people arrested, so we sat until the building
closed and were arrested by Capitol Police on the charge of unlawful assembly.
Just before we were arrested, we were chanting my favorite chant, which was,
“I would rather go to jail than die in a nursing home.”
We
were processed in a Senate hearing room—in fact, it was the room where
Judge [John] Roberts had his confirmation hearing. The police didn’t treat
us badly like they do with anti-war and anti-globalization protesters. But it
took them 11 hours to process us. They started at 7:30 p.m. and we were done at
6:30 in the morning. But I enjoyed the experience of being there and our spirits
were very high.
Was there much publicity?
We were on the
front page of the Wash ington Post. One headline we saw read, “ADAPT
storms Congress.”
On Tuesday, we went to the Depart ment of Health
and Human Services for a rally in the morning. In the afternoon, some went to
Virginia to speak with the director of housing about affordable and accessible
housing for people coming out of nursing homes. We were ready to sit in his
office if he didn’t talk to us, but he actually did.
On Wednesday we
had a rally against the National Governors’ Association and they sent a
spokesperson out to talk to us, though he wasn’t supplying us with very
satisfactory results. That was on the issue of Medicaid, block grants to the
states, and the cutbacks in services on the state level.
For example, in
Tennessee [Frist’s home state—ed.] the state cut off a program that
helped people on ventilators stay in their own homes. They have forced them into
nursing homes, and one person has already died from this. ADAPT in Nashville
held a month-long sit-in, and we will have a national action there in the spring
of 2006.
In the afternoon some of us from Chi cago met with staff people
for Illinois Congress members. We are supporting MICASSA, an act which promotes
community care rather than nursing homes, and “money follow the
person” legislation—which puts a disabled person’s money under
his or her own control, not the nursing home or institution that he or she is
in.
How did the issue of Katrina
tie in with your
actions?
People with disabilities were being treated very badly in the
evacuation. We raised this in all our actions. A lot of people who had been
living in their own houses or apartments were taken out of state and placed in
nursing homes, and their wheelchairs were taken away and they were given junky
chairs by the airlines.
How did that happen?
Well, when you
use a wheelchair and you travel by plane, the airlines won’t send your own
wheelchair on the plane. They confiscate your wheelchair and keep it at your
point of origin, and at your destination they give you cheap wheelchairs of
their own.
So the evacuees’ own wheelchairs are still impounded
at the airport in New Orleans?
We think so. This also happened to us
when we flew out from Chicago for the protest, and when we got back, two of us
had had their chairs damaged by the airline when they were supposed to be
storing them. One had a panel removed and another had a wire cut.
More
information on the demonstration, including pictures and press releases, and on
our demands and the legislation we support are at the website www.adapt.org.
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