Madison Protests Focus on Worker Rights, But Not Healthcare

From the Madison Cap Times:

Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill proposes sweeping changes to the state’s Medicaid programs, changes that could affect many of the 1.2 million state residents enrolled in public health programs like BadgerCare, Family Care, and SeniorCare. The provisions would allow the administration to revamp and even gut the programs without following state laws or the normal legislative processes.

But not many people seem to know or care, judging by the protests in the Capitol this week.

Tens of thousands of protesters in Madison, including children, teachers, firemen, police officers, and other union workers, have jammed the Capitol’s marble corridors and hung banners from balconies. But the issue that has captured the attention of the entire country is workers’ rights. Hardly any of the signs or the slogans have had anything to do with Medicaid programs. In one week of covering the rallies, Capital Times reporters found only one protester, a self-employed worker named Frank Church from Shorewood, who said he showed up because he worried the bill might threaten his health benefits.

“Everybody who is controlling the message is only controlling it to be about the unions,” says Molly Cisco, director of Grassroots Empowerment, an advocacy group for people with mental illnesses. ”I have been screaming about this. I’ve been sending letters to the editor and calling the Democratic Party every hour. It’s been so frustrating. I don’t want us to be pitted against the unions, but they’ve been so loud we haven’t been able to find our niche or get our voices heard.”

Cisco and many other advocates say they appreciate the media coverage and public support for workers’ rights, but that their constituents, from infants and mothers in poor neighborhoods to the disabled and the elderly, deserve a share, too.

Read the rest of the article at Madison Cap Times.