[Headline] CAPITOL CONFRONTATIONS
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[Image caption] ADAPT left Gingrich a wake-up call an his apartment pager system. Photo: Tom Olin

Out on the plaza in front of the Washington, DC headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, Mike Auberger's cellular phone rang. HHS Secretary Donna Shalala's aide was calling to complain that inside the Administration's fourth floor offices ADAPT's cries were distracting the staff. Outside, stretching across the plaza and lined six deep, ADAPT and our supporters were holding a press conference, ADAPT style, to announce our arrival in the Capitol and to call again for freedom for our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and for our grandparents from the nursing homes of America which still imprison almost two million of us. "Can you hear us, on the inside?" we chanted to the bureaucrats who oversee the national policies which support the institutional bias in our long term care system.

Day leader Maria Ways spoke to the crowd saying "ADAPT wants to fundamentally change our long term care system so that people with disabilities will no longer be forced into nursing homes and other institutions. We have challenged the Clinton Administration to endorse a national attendant services program. They have responded! .... We will take our message to Congress! We want Congress to pass [a national attendant services program] CASA! Only then will the nursing home industry lose its deathgrip on people in this country who need long term care services."

Secretary Shalala had agreed to meet with us and have her Health Care Finance Administration, HCFA, officials sit down with ADAPT and try to work on ways to end this bias. ADAPT had agreed to focus on other collaborators Congress and its leadership. So 700 ADAPT supporters who had gathered from around the nation for the press conference turned and marched up the hill, destination: the Speaker's office inside the Capitol.

[Subheading] CRIPS IN THE CRYPT
Just one year ago, while still Minority Whip, Newt Gingrich had met with ADAPT and promised to support a national attendant services program which is consumer controlled. Yet, despite lip service to the program ADAPT is promoting, Gingrich failed to come through. Ongoing, good faith efforts on the part of Georgia ADAPT were shrugged off. Even after ADAPT drafted a bill, the Community Attendant Services Act, CASA, and sent it to him and other legislators to consider sponsoring, Gingrich and his staff would not make a move, would not even say no. Letters and phone requests for a meeting while ADAPT was in town had been ignored. So, once again ADAPT came en force, to Gingrich's door, hoping he would make good on his previous commitments.

Marching with 700 is not the same as marching with one hundred. One week post the Oklahoma bombing, federal security was still extremely tight. We entered the Capitol in a steady trickle. As the first of the group entered the restricted area in which the Speaker's office is located, the line strung out through the whole Capitol, through security check, out the accessible east door, down the ramp, and down the driveway to Independence Ave. We had planned to wait until an appointment was made, but Security said anyone who did not leave would be arrested. As arrests started, supporters in the Crypt of the Capitol (the room under the Rotunda) began chanting. "I'd rather go to jail than to die in a nursing home" echoed down the marbled halls.

[Subheading] ADAPT MAKES A HOUSE CALL
ADAPT was not finished for the day however. We announced we were moving to a shady spot to cool down and have lunch. The shady spot we settled in just happened to be in front of Newt's home, a couple blocks from the Capitol. Hundreds of disabled people out on a picnic creates a scene by itself.

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[Image caption] Photo: Tam Olin.

The building is owned by the United Methodists. A negotiation team was sent into their office building next door to see if Newt's landlords would have better luck calling him than we had At first there were discussions of proper channels, strategy on our CASA bill, etc. But as it drew closer to closing time and more and more of us began to gather in their lobby, the United Methodists began to call his office in earnest. Then a funny thing happened.

We had gathered in the church office, and repeated calls had been ignored by the Gingrich staff. Staff had, at first, claimed Newt was out of town, but it slipped out that he had returned to DC around noon. Then they claimed he was making a speech at the State Department and could not be reached by phone, as all the phones there were out of order. The church people grew outraged as Gingrich's staffs tales grew taller and taller. To add insult to injury, Gingrich's Legislative Director Krister Holladay would put each call on hold and never pick it up again. At one point we were on hold on four lines at once. Media swarmed around.

All we asked for was a meeting. First we were told a month's wait, then next week, then Friday. But we were set to leave on Thursday and the Speaker did not offer to cover additional expenses. Finally the head of the United Methodist office said she was joining us and wanted an end to these excuses.

But Gingrich was on the lamb. So, as six o'clock came and went, we vowed to seek out the Speaker on Tuesday, and headed for home. The last of our crowd were still trickling in after 11 pm. It had been a long, hard day. At 10:30pm Holladay, the legislative staffer, had called our hotel to offer a meeting next week with five of our people; for the same reasons as before, next week was not acceptable.

[Subheading] BACK ON THE BEAT
Tuesday we picked up where we left off on Monday. To get into DC from where we were staying we had to shuttle in city buses driven by local transit union members, to the closest Metro stop several miles away. There we set up a relay system and shuttled folks via Metro into downtown. Day two we got off on the stop right outside the Republican National Headquarters. When they saw the first few ADAPT folks arriving, they slammed shut their doors and would not let anyone in without multiple picture ID and a pat down. They had not forgotten our visit last year. Once assembled, we marched over t the Rayburn House Office Building to stop in at Gingrich's district office where we had met with him last year. We had had luck there in the past, perhaps we would have it again this time. That was not to be.

We were only met with stonewalling once again. We asked why the Speaker would have pledged support once and then act this way.

Why would he ignore a program which would more cost effectively serve people, would get Government off our backs by reducing federally mandated bias for institutions, would support family values by allowing people to remain at home instead of forcing them into institutions in order to receive services, and would support what the people want? His staff had no answer, except to ask the police to arrest us.

[Subheading] MESSAGE DELIVERED
We returned to Newt's house that afternoon to demand that people be allowed to live in their own homes. We felt the Speaker would best understand the im-portance of one's own home if access to his was made as difficult as he keeps access to ours.

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[Image caption] Manor Care was completely surrounded with every entrance blocked. Photo: Tom Olin

Charging the front door of the apartment building ADAPT soon packed the circular driveway in front of the building, swarmed up the ramp and covered the lawn and sidewalks. Chants of "Our Homes Not Nursing Homes" and "Free Our People" roared through the air. Tussles at the door got one ADAPT member inside, but Secret Service quickly closed and locked it again. Creative ADAPT members found the intercom system to be let into the building. Instead of simply buzzing inside each apartment, this system connected to the tenants' telephone answering machines. So we filled up Gingrich's tape with messages about community-based attendant services, just in case he was not clear about how we felt about his attempts to trick us. One enterprising ADAPT member, into rock climbing, scaled the building and covered it -- almost to the second floor with our picket signs so Gingrich would get our message in alternate formats.

Neighbors looked on, amazed to see how folks receiving services feel about the nursing home industry.

Rumor has it that Gingrich had checked into a Quality hotel for the night.

[Subheading] CONFRONTING THE OPPOSITION

Wednesday was the day for meetings with Shalala and her staff. Wednesday was also the day for the showdown with Manor Care, the third largest nursing home chain in the nation, whose holdings also include Econolodge, Comfort Inns, as well as several other hotel\motel chains.

Despite pouring rain ADAPT troops were ready for action. In wave after wave we shuttled to the headquarters of the $2.1-billion-in-yearly-revenues Manor Care Corporation. The Chief Executive Officer Stewart Barnum JR quickly agreed to meet with our negotiating team of Bob Liston, Karen Tamley, Alfredo Juarez, and Cassie James. Tension and confusion over the meeting site almost lead to arrests on the spot, but the police were reigned in and negotiations began. However, different from their big sister corporation Beverly, Manor Care was not even willing to publicly support choice by supporting the creation of a national attendant services program. They used the tired old company line about robbing Peter to pay Paul. ADAPT informed them we want community services for both Peter and Paul, in addition to Mary! That apparently blew their minds. They could not conceive of giving up a penny of the obscene profits they wring from people's lives each year.

When negotiations fell through, ADAPT let Manor Care taste what life in a nursing home is all about.‘ Blocking all exits and entrances, ADAPT shut down the headquarters and turned the place into a nursing home. No one went in or out without ADAPT permission. No one appeared to be too fond of this dose of their own medicine.

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[Image caption] Folks from 24 states joined ADAPT's protest and no one bitched about the rain which drenched the group several times Photo: Tom Olin.

[Subheading] HIGH LEVEL TALKS
Meanwhile back in the Capitol, ADAPT representatives and our supporters met with HHS Secretary Donna Shalala. Beltway disability groups were there, and most made it clear they backed ADAPT on this one. Shalala started off trying to convince everyone that we should rally around to support Medicaid and its current programs. But ADAPT countered making it clear that the disability community saw little reason to support the status quo. We argued that to get support for Medicaid, Shalala should offer a bold and better alternative, like ADAPT's Community Attendant Services Act, CASA. People are looking for a change, but right now the only alternative proposed is the Republican's slash and burn plan, which steals the limelight - in large part - for lack of any alternate solution from the Administration. It took the better part of an hour to get her to come around, but by the end Shalala agreed to issue a statement supporting the principles of CASA. Her strong endorsement (see p.9) was issued before 5pm that afternoon. She could not however, endorse redirecting a penny of nursing home funds.

Not only did Shalala meet with ADAPT and endorse the basic principle of our proposal, she had Bruce Vladeck, head of the Health Care Finance Administration, HCFA, meet with ADAPT too. Vladeck and his staff sat down with a delegation from ADAPT which included a representative from each of the 24 states participating in this action. Each ADAPT representative outlined a piece of the problem, using a local example to illustrate her or his point. Vladeck and his staff quickly agreed an ongoing dialog was in order, and the rest of the meeting was spent hammering out the plan for this dialog.

After these meetings ADAPT's HHS contingent hurried to meet up with the rest of the group. As we neared the protest we got a rare feel for what an ADAPT action feels like from the outside. Police had closed off streets for blocks around the protest site. Traffic was at a crawl and we even had to sneak through the parking lot of a gas station to get near enough to rejoin our group. We later learned that the TV soap operas had been interrupted that afternoon to tell of the protest and the traffic situation.

[Subheading] WET 'N' WILD
Quickly parking the vans, we came over a hill and were met by the beautiful sight of our fellow ADAPTers in formation around the headquarter& Police milled around them.

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[Image caption] Despite torrential rains, ADAPT challenged the third largest nursing home chain, Manor Cue whose profits were 3500 million in 1993. Manor Care also owns several chains of well known hotels and motels. Photo Carolyn Long.

It was an eloquent, if wordless, statement about the power of the people, once they refuse to continue cooperating in their own oppression: you want to lock us up for your profits, well you can at least get a feel for the price you extort for your comforts.

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[Image caption] Family values, personal responsibility — ADAPT style. Photo: Tom Olin

When the police started to arrest they had a big job on their hands. At first, frustrated with their inability to get rid of the problem quickly, police handcuffed people to their chairs and each other. Arrestees were taken to a nearby building for processing. Ironically this building was one Manor Care used to store extra furniture; ADAPT was literally being warehoused by this greedy corporation. Soon however, the sheer numbers began to get to the police, some of whom actually went down the lines of corralled arresters asking if anyone wanted to be "un-arrested." However, we remained firm: We'd rather go to jail than to die in a nursing home! In the end 120 were ticketed.


[Subheading] SUPER SUPPORT
The Baltimore bus company whose incredible support for our fight for liberty had made our actions possible, arrived and shuttled us home. These fabulous driven, with their chartered buses had shuttled us to various locals all week, including Manor Care headquarters, and had been threatened with arrest by the cops if they returned with more protesters.

That night, after watching the ground-breaking video "When Billy Brake His Head and Other Tales of Wonder, ADAPT celebrated the fight for liberty and justice. In various corners of our hotel celebration continued until dawn. Then began the farewells and the long, hard road home.

Typical ADAPT, our four day Baltimore action took us down many paths, none of which led to Baltimore.

Created on

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Posted on

Friday 13 September 2019

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