On Tuesday night, Capitol police arrested 26 individuals, including several with physical disabilities, during a protest against proposed Medicaid cuts by Republican lawmakers.
Throughout the week, House Republicans have been working on a reconciliation bill aimed at reducing Medicaid funding by $625 billion. The proposal includes implementing work requirements and restricting federal Medicaid funding to states.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected that approximately 7.6 million people in the U.S. would lose their health insurance under this plan.
Demonstrators, organized in part by the disability rights group ADAPT, gathered in wheelchairs to form a blockade in the Capitol’s hallways, attempting to prevent lawmakers from entering a hearing room where the bill was under negotiation.
According to a statement from Capitol Police, protesting within Congressional buildings is prohibited by law.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that around 9.9 million Medicaid beneficiaries qualify due to physical disabilities or mental health conditions, representing about 11% of all recipients.
Many other disabled individuals on Medicaid qualify based on income or chronic health conditions, suggesting this number may only represent a segment of the affected population.
Medicaid’s expenditures include significant funding for in-home care for disabled individuals.
Julie Farrar, an ADAPT activist, expressed her discontent to Politico, stating, “I’m weary of fighting for the right to exist. 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 had pledged not to cut Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security during his campaign, reiterating this promise in February with Sean Hannity.
“Medicare, Medicaid—none of that stuff is going to be touched,” Trump asserted. “We won’t have to.”
The proposed Medicaid reductions are intended to finance an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which primarily favored affluent individuals and large corporations.
ADAPT’s history of protesting includes a similar demonstration at the U.S. Capitol in 2017 against attempts by Trump and House Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The repeal effort ultimately failed in the Senate.
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