tuning in for infotainment<\/a> now know that Medicaid is under attack. <\/p>\nBob Kafka, ADAPT organizer who traveled to DC from Austin, TX, said it\u2019s a sad state of affairs when people getting arrested in wheelchairs need a celebrity to get media coverage, but that\u2019s the reality we\u2019re living in.
\n\u201cThe public presence of advocates for Medicare and Social Security is extremely visible, but the voice of people with disabilities who need Medicaid services has been often overshadowed at the federal level,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are here to make it plain to Congress and the administration that we want action, not just words.\u201d<\/p>\n
When ADAPT activists go to DC, they barely sleep. On Tuesday, they shut down the Health and Human Services building. Many blocked the front doors with their wheelchairs. They were there demanding the release of Community First Choice regulations that would allow people to leave nursing homes and live independently. <\/p>\n
Video: http:\/\/www.ustream.tv\/recorded\/22093522<\/p>\n
They\u2019re also packing the halls of the House and Senate. Kafka says only one politician has met with activists. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is one of the few politicians who consistently fights for people with disabilities. <\/p>\n
We should all be outraged over how people with disabilities are treated in a country with so much wealth. Over 500 people from all 50 states traveled to DC to simply say, Medicaid matters. We matter. We\u2019re not going to sit by and watch you shred our social safety net.<\/p>\n
For many of these activists, just leaving the house is a chore. But if they don\u2019t speak out and raise awareness, who will? They could lose their in-home services; they could lose the right to stay in their homes. And that\u2019s why, year after year, they make the trek to the country\u2019s capitol, knowing they will be arrested and won\u2019t get much media attention.<\/p>\n
But they have no choice. Denise McMullin-Powell of Deleware told CNN that \u201cit\u2019s worth getting arrested, it\u2019s worth dying for, but they\u2019re gonna kill us first because of the cuts. If we can\u2019t stay in our home, if we can\u2019t get the things we need through Medicaid, we will die in the streets.\u201d <\/p>\n
Today is the last day of ADAPT\u2019s three-day series of actions highlighting the failure of the federal government to protect community based services for very low-income people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid. Republican Congressman Paul Ryan\u2019s budget, which has been endorsed by Mitt Romney, calls for $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years. <\/p>\n
Do what you can to spread the word about these actions and give these activists the exposure they deserve. Politicians need to be shamed for giving tax breaks to the wealthy while people in wheelchairs march in the rain so they can simply live independently. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents. I’m Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco with this week’s Activist Beat for Uprising. Each week I’ll bring you a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio-commentaries","category-the-activist-beat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents. <\/em><\/p>\n