medicaid is literally the health insurance that covers one out of every two births in this country. but for people of disabilities it s the single largest source of funding, primary source of funding for services that help people with disability stay in their own homes so they do not have to live in freakin institutions. and if they re going to cut more than three quarters of a trillion dollars out of medicaid, so they can pay for this big tax cut they want to give the richest people in the country, that is going to have a radical effect on american s access to health care on tens of millions of americans ability to have health insurance coverage in this country. but for people with disabilities, if this happens, this is going to be a catapu ta hurdling them into a brutal past, battle days that were not that long ago. they were saying save or
disabilities, it s the single largest source of funding, primary source of funding for services that help people with disability stay in their own homes so they do not have to live in freakin institutions. and if they re going to cut more than three quarters of a trillion dollars out of medicaid, so they can pay for this big tax cut they want to give the richest people in the country, that is going to have a radical effect on american s access to health care on tens of millions of americans ability to have health insurance coverage in this country. but for people with disabilities, if this happens, this is going to be a catapult hurdling them into a brutal past, battle days that were not that long ago. and which people remember. and so they made themselves the tip of the spear today. that s why they were saying save our liberty. think about your liberty if you re talking about the difference between having to live in an institution because you can t pay for a homme health aide to com
down rush hour after rush hour starting in the 70s. in 1992 city of denver put up a freakin plaque for them commemorating this, on the streets of denver that really ended up change the whole country. that plak is there today. and they rededicated it, put up a fresh one in 2005. they say that nobody is a hero in their hometown and that is usually true in the moment. sometimes if you wait a couple of decade they see what you did at home that bugged them so much when you did it turned out to be the right thing to do. adapt still exists. and from the very beginning they do not mess around. i will also say as an activist group that is that pushy, they have halls had a pretty good sense of humor. they preserved this bumper stick enwhen adapt was pushing for the
make it so i can use it, not letting this guy off of the hook. that was in 81. 82 another woman in a wheelchair getting arrested at the transit offices in denver. you see the cops surrounding her there. and the tactics they pioneered in colorado started taking off in places across the country as well. the week after that first protest in july 1978 in denver, the very next week, same kind of protest happened in san francisco. again, this simple demand. let us ride the freakin bus. we re taxpayers. we pay for it just like everybody else does. make it accessible for us. we are citizens. you saw similar protests in new york city. you saw similar protests in washington, d.c. you saw protesters in wheelchairs turn up at particularly relevant national conventions, like the american public transit association convention. hey, meet your wheelchair using would be customers if you would freaking make it possible for
that was 1985. by the end of that decade, those hard won gains wouldn t just be in places like denver. they would be nationwide. in 1990 george h.w. bush signed the americans with disabilities act. new england many things the americans with disabilities act did, it did establish nationwide that public transit, buses need to have wheelchair lifts. they need to be accessible to people with disabilities. that movement that they started in denver, 1978, 1990 it paid off nationwide. and you know what? two years after that in 1992, the city of denver, which had been so freakin annoyed with the wheelchair activists, the city of denver which was ready to boil over in frustration after the activists who had shut down rush hour after rush hour starting in the 70s. in 1992 city of denver put up a freakin plaque for them