AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org.

Last week on Capitol Hill, police arrested more than two dozen people, including many disability rights activists, as they protested Republican plans to gut Medicaid and other programs for the poor and working class to help cover the cost of $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for the rich. Protesters lined the halls outside a meeting of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, while inside a demonstrator was led away by police after disrupting the hearing.

PROTESTER: … will me. I’m HIV-positive for 20 years. I have survived on my meds, that are $10,000 a month!

AMY GOODMAN: Security wheeled this protester in her wheelchair out of the congressional hearing.

For more, I want to bring into this conversation Julie Farrar, an activist with ADAPT, a disability rights group, who joined some 90 people from her group in disrupting the congressional hearing over Trump’s new proposed budget bill.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Julie. First, describe your gravest concerns right now, as the House met through the night to try to get this bill passed.

JULIE FARRAR: Well, I just want to say that it is an honor to be on with Reverend Barber, and echo what he said. This big, beautiful bill for billionaires is going to kill people.

We are putting — ADAPT has been around for 40 years — for 44 years, and we fought for the expansion of rights for disabled people, for people who are aging into disability. So, in the ’90s, I crawled up the steps to the Capitol to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. I was able to go to school because of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

And now, instead of fighting to expand the right to live in the community and fight for better wages for home care workers — a huge percentage, a large percentage of our home care workers are immigrant, older immigrant women of color. And make no mistake, President Trump is going after immigrants. He’s going after immigrants, period.

And so, when we’re putting our bodies on the line, it’s because our bodies are on the line. Cuts to Medicaid — and that’s already a very fragile spider web. It is not a safety net; it’s a spider web of services. ADAPT is fighting for affordable, accessible housing and Medicaid and services, fully funding those, and livable wages for home care workers. And all of these are under attack right now. It is — it’s just appalling that they are literally stealing money from poor people’s pockets to pay for billionaires’ rockets. And Elon Musk is the largest recipient of welfare, make no mistake. We have to rely on this very fragile web of services. So, if our benefits are affected, if our Social Security goes up by $6, then our rent can go up by $12, or we can lose the ability to live in low-income housing. We can lose Medicaid. With disabled people, we’re putting our lives on the line, because we know that our lives are on the line.

There were 26 people in there that were arrested. And that woman was not with ADAPT, but she is now. She’s from Ohio. We connected, and she’s looking at starting an APAPT chapter there. And we do believe that the tool — one of the tools in social justice that is very effective is direct action. So we’re putting our bodies on the line, because it is our lives that are going to be affected. I know people that are going to die without their home care services.

As this budget cuts Medicaid and puts caps on how much money can be spent, and then also punishes states, that actually have been carrying the red states with the taxes that we pay, but punishing states that are states that will not implement these ridiculous immigration acts, those states are going to be punished by money — by the federal money that is spent on Medicaid and other programs. That money is going to be taken away, and that is going to hurt programs.

Like, we have a program called Money Follows the Person, that helps people get out of nursing homes and into the community. That is our fight. We hear so much about “Grandma’s going to be thrown out of the nursing home.” ADAPT is all about keeping grandma at home, to make sure that she has the services that she needs to remain in her community and age in place. And all of these services are going to be affected. Housing is going to be affected. The Energy Assistance Program and those green energy projects, those helped a lot of poor and disabled people be able to stay in their homes. And —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Julie — Julie, if I can ask you also? The bill would require —

JULIE FARRAR: Yes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — more frequent income and work verifications to qualify for Medicaid. How will these changes affect especially people with disabilities?

JULIE FARRAR: The easiest way to describe what is going to happen to the majority of people is it’s going to be attrition from the program, because now, instead of me having to prove that I’m disabled — I was born missing 12 vertebrae. I can pray, and I can take vitamins, and I am still going to be disabled. So, every six months, I have to prove that I’m disabled enough to qualify for Medicaid. If you are receiving long-term care services, whether it’s in a nursing home or in your own home, and also wheelchairs and all of our medical equipment, the only payer for those are Medicaid and Medicare, period.

And when these cuts go into place, it is just ludicrous, because you have federal — outdated federal computer systems, and then you have outdated state computer systems, and then you have outdated county computer systems, and they’re going to have to communicate with each other, and they’re not going to be able to. And people are going to fall off because they haven’t qualified, they haven’t turned in — their application hasn’t been processed in a timely fashion. So, there’s going to be a lot of that, that is just attrition.

But there is not a way for them to figure out who is on Medicaid. And if you’re disabled, you have to have less than $2,000 in assets, so you have to be impoverished, but you’re supposed to work. These people, every six months, are going to have to prove this. And they’re going to have to have some sort of system to know who is elderly or who is disabled who cannot work. And it’s just — there’s no way for that to happen.

It’s going to kill people. It’s degrading. It’s demeaning. And I want to remind people that the cruelty is the point. The cruelty is the point of this. Poor people are going to pay. Disabled people are going to die. And it is blood on the hands of the GOP and the president and the administration, that they want this big, beautiful bill for billionaires that will kill poor people, and it will kill disabled people.

AMY GOODMAN: Julie Farrar, we want to — 

JULIE FARRAR: And it’s a bureaucracy.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank —

JULIE FARRAR: It’s a bureaucracy.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, joining us from Albany, disability rights activist with ADAPT. Among the signs that people carried into that hearing were “our homes, not nursing homes.” And for our radio audience who was just listening, if you go to democracynow.org, you’ll see the footage of the wheelchair warriors who disrupted the House hearing.