Nearly 300 members of the national disability-rights group ADAPT — many in wheelchairs — lined up outside the Longworth building, and several dozen congregated inside the House Budget chairman's second-floor office.
Protester Michael Ervin, a long-time member of ADAPT, traveled from Chicago to demand lawmakers not slash Medicaid funding as part of the House-passed plan to pare federal spending by $5.8 trillion over the next decade. The Ryan budget would cut Medicaid’s funding by about a quarter by converting it into block grants to the states.
“A lot of us depend on Medicaid for very important things besides durable medical equipment, which is things like wheelchairs, crutches, prosthetics,” Ervin said. “Even more so, a lot of us depend on it for the assistance we get every day to live in our communities.”
Lawmakers say the plan give “states more flexibility, but that’s like saying Jim Crow laws give states more flexibility to decide who gets to drink at their drinking fountains,” Ervin said. “Flexibility is basically a code word for abandonment.”
via thehill.com