ADAPT Takes Medicaid Reform Fight to the Senate's Gang of Six - 101 protestors arrested this week

ADAPT Takes Medicaid Reform Fight to the Senate's Gang of Six; Meets with the White House; Attends Rockefeller Press Conference
http://www.adapt.org/freeourpeople/2011/report05.php



Today, ADAPT took to Capitol Hill once again to build on the momentum of our 101 arrests in the Cannon and Longworth House Office Buildings. Today, we focused on the U.S. Senate, particularly the Gang of Six, the bipartisan group of Senators who are charged with creating the Senate's budget plan---its response to the House-passed Ryan Plan.

The Gang of Six consists of Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va.; Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

Six contingents of around fifty ADAPTers each visited one of the six Senators' offices to demand that the Senate budget plan eliminate the institutional bias, prevent caps on Medicaid spending, and get rid of the idea to block grant Medicaid funding to states. In addition, we asked that the Senate work to introduce legislation that will mandate community choice as a service in every state, and work with ADAPT to ensure that our voices are at the table in every decision that affects us.

In the case of each Senator, we met with an aide or the chief of staff and discussed the pros and cons of our demands. At Senator Warner's office, Michelle Ivery of ADAPT of Tennessee made the staffer cry when she asked, "If you can help other people, why can't you help us?" This was Michelle's first action and she had spent Monday night under arrest for demonstrating in the Cannon Rotunda.

Disabled protesters arrested outside Ryan's office
State group slams proposal for Medicaid
http://www.jsonline.com/news/usandworld/121297483.html

Glozier said the group has been fighting what it calls a bias in the Medicaid system toward institutional treatment as opposed to home-based care. He said the Ryan proposal would exacerbate that problem and have the effect of pushing more disabled people into institutional care.

Glozier said about a dozen Wisconsinites were involved in the protests this week, most of whom got arrested Monday for "unlawful conduct" and released with future court dates. Several spent the night in the Rayburn House Office Building being processed by Capitol Police.

"I'd rather go to jail than die in a nursing home," Ruth Fox of Minong said of the civil disobedience tactics employed this week. Fox said she has colon cancer.

Ryan staffers met with the protesters Monday in the Cannon building and spoke to them as well in Ryan's office Tuesday, though the protesters failed in their effort to secure a meeting with Ryan himself. Glozier said his group left Ryan's office voluntarily after Ryan aides declined to have them removed, then were arrested in the hallway.