Culture

Capitol Hill Police Are Arresting And Dragging Protesters Of The GOP Healthcare Bill Down Hallways

by: Uproxx authors

Throughout the GOP’s repeated attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with legislation that will cover fewer and fewer people, there have been several common threads, which include CBO scores that inevitably show how disastrous these bills would be and how unpopular the GOP plans are compared to Obamacare. However, the Graham-Cassidy bill nevertheless continues to approach a vote — despite John McCain possibly killing its chances last week — and protesters are taking to the hallways of Capitol Hill in a replay of a June scenario that saw chaos outside of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office.

Protesters, some from the group ADAPT, interrupted the Senate Finance Committee’s scheduled hearing concerning the bill. The protesters lined up in the halls of the Capitol for hours before the hearing was scheduled to begin.

https://twitter.com/kmcdonovgh/status/912381546446901248

As the hearing was called to order by Sen. Orrin Hatch, protesters began chanting, “No cuts to Medicaid. Save our liberty.” Sen. Hatch tried to bring order to the hearing and threatened to end it if the audience did not calm down.

This did not sit well with some on the Senate Finance Committee.

Soon enough, the Capitol Police began dragging (literally in several cases) people, including those in wheelchairs, out of the Finance Committee hearing.

While this was happening, Sen. Bill Cassidy was seen yawning, perhaps waiting for the disruption to stop so he can get back to talking about the Jimmy Kimmel test.

Anonymous GOP Committee staffers — who were slightly more aware of the optics of the situation — reportedly said, “this is not good” while surveying people in wheelchairs being arrested by police for voicing their desire to keep health insurance.