PHOTO/ STEVE EBERHARDT
ATLANTA, GA — Georgia Governor Nathan Deal vowed in January at the beginning of the legislative session that he would not accept federal funding for Medicaid Expansion that would add 650,000 people to the Medicaid rolls.
After protesting to fund Medicaid Expansion, twelve Moral Monday members decided they would go to jail to illuminate the situation in Georgia for those without healthcare. So, on Monday, March 2, protestors blocked the Capitol steps and refused to move.
The placards around their necks displayed what was happening in Georgia. Four hospitals are closed and eight are open day-to-day. Those who live in the rural areas of Georgia have a life and death situation since they may have to go sixty miles in order to get to a hospital.
Twelve hundred people died for lack of healthcare in Georgia in 2014. Georgia is #2 in the country with the death rate of those who don’t have access to medical care.
The whole jail experience was like a step backward in time. It took from 5 PM until 11 PM to check us in—answering questions, getting finger printed, and getting our pictures taken. We stayed in jail until 7:00 the next morning. I really think that they were trying to teach us a lesson for our civil disobedience.
When we were put into the holding cells, I was able to talk with some of the other people who were under arrest for minor offenses. These were the same people who are being denied health care. It was an eye opening experience to hear the reasons they were put in jail. One young woman told me that she ran a red light that day and the police stopped and arrested her because they had information from the computer she had missed a court date. She was supposed to have been in court the Wednesday before Thanksgiving but she said she didn’t get the letter until the first week in December. Another young women told me that she was arrested for buying a TV on Craigslist. It had been stolen. Others told me that they were arrested because they hadn’t paid the loan from the bonding company the last time they had been arrested.
The guards yelled down the hall at each other. There were no walkie talkies or any devices that should have been used. The guards screamed at the inmates and treated them inhumanely. We had to raise our hand in order to get up and go to the bathroom, go to the vending machines, or use the telephone. I think it was meant to set a very oppressive environment. One young African American woman analyzed the situation in the jail as one likened to the overseer on the plantation long ago. She stated that the overseer—the African American officer kept people obedient.
This jail was filled with people whose only “crime” was being poor and the majority of them were African American. Yes, I went back in time to a debtor’s prison.
The struggle for Medicaid Expansion is a step forward in bringing consciousness to people that we need a new society that cares and values human life and provides the necessities for all.
