Jason Sattler

Opinion columnist

They might have gotten away with it if not for those meddling disability activists.

Until several members of the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) organization were yanked from their wheelchairs and arrested for conducting a sit-in outside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on the day the Senate GOP’s first draft of Trumpcare went public, Republicans had done a beautiful job of hiding the truth about their effort to “repeal and replace” Obamacare.

That truth? Conservatives are more interested in gutting Medicaid than getting rid of the Affordable Care Act.

Former congressman Barney Frank has joked for decades that Republicans believe life begins at conception and ends at birth. We’re now learning that for America’s right wing, Obamacare actually began in 1965. That’s when Medicaid became the heart of America’s health care safety net, a bulwark that covers more than 70 million Americans including about half of all births, 76% of poor kids and 64% of all seniors in nursing homes.

All that may sound like welfare to the right, but you could argue that there’s nothing more conservative in these United States than the services Medicaid provides for citizens with disabilities — except perhaps a bald eagle screeching “Merry Christmas.”

In fact, yes, let’s argue that.

The 50 unique state programs cover 60% of all children with disabilities, affirming the “pro-life” decisions of parents to have children regardless of the potential complications. The expenses incurred by parents of kids with severe special needs are so immense that even affluent families could be bankrupted without the supplemental support of Medicaid.

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The Senate GOP argues its proposed Medicaid cuts of up to 39%, which survived the bill’s second draft intact, won’t hit families caring for children with disabilities.

But don’t believe the spin.

Yes, there is a “carve out” to protect “blind and disabled” children, but that will only protect a “fraction of kids” with severe special needs, according to Janis Guerney, public policy co-director at Family Voices. Additionally, kids with “complex conditions— such as cystic fibrosis, autism and Down syndrome — would be vulnerable to whatever cuts their states make,” according to Kaiser Health News’ Jordan Rau.

States, which have to balance their budgets by law, will be forced into constant “Sophie’s choices” requiring them to decide who is most deserving of care — the elderly, poor kids or people with disabilities.

The result will inevitably be broken families.

“You’ll see kids going into pediatric nursing homes, kids not being able to be discharged from hospitals,” said Meg Comeau, a researcher at the Boston University School of Public Health’s Catalyst Center.

And for adults with disabilities, like those non-violent resisters in ADAPT, these life-changing policy choices are also a matter of freedom and incarceration. Both seriously and literally.

Medicaid support makes it possible for millions of disabled Americans to participate in society. For them, chores you may take for granted, like bathing and dressing, are only possible because subsidized attendants allow them to do the one thing conservatives say they want all of us to do: work.

Up to three million disabled people could be ripped from their lives and forced to spend the rest of their existence forcibly incarcerated in a nursing home, according to Mary Lou Breslin of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

That’s a death sentence on millions without even the due process of one Senate hearing examining the consequences of this bill.

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It’s true that conservatives have been trying to gut Medicaid for 35 years, even before House Speaker Paul Ryan was drooling in the keg line at college over the prospect of uninsuring poor families. But it was the most conservative conservative ever to conservative, Ronald Reagan, who signed Medicaid’s home and community-based service provisions into law based on the very conservative premise that people who have committed no crime should not be held captive by the government or anyone.

Republicans don’t want to get into the debate about people with disabilities because it reveals the cruelty of the “personal responsibility” narrative they’re using to sell massive, unpopular cuts to America’s largest insurance provider. Vice President Pence has gone as far as pushing misinformation about Ohio’s Medicaid waiting lists for the disabled; it was quickly debunked by the state’s Republican governor.

Trumpcare’s assault on those among us with severe disabilities has revealed the truth in Frank’s jest about the so-called “pro-life” movement. It becomes very “pro-choice” the moment you are born. But the choices are made by the rich and the powerful — not by you.

Jason Sattler, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is a columnist for The National Memo. Follow him on Twitter @LOLGOP.

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