The protesters locked inside the Capitol are now entering their 3rd week of the TennCare sit-in.
The Governor continues to refuse to take their demands seriously.
They've told the Governor that they will not leave until he stops sending out health care termination notices and agrees to hold public meetings designed to find a way to reform the state's expanded Medicaid program, a way that does not include cutting hundreds of thousands of sick, disabled, elderly and poor people from the health care rolls.
The Governor seems to be employing a number of strategies designed to make the protesters so uncomfortable that they leave. At various times during the two-week long protest the State Troopers who guard the protesting TennCare enrollees, some of whom are disabled, have forced them to make do without an adequate supply of food and water.
More recently, State Troopers locked the protesters out of the room that contains all their supplies. They must survive the long holiday weekend without "blankets and padding that the Enrollees in wheelchairs were using to sleep on. They also lost their cell phone chargers and other supplies."
It seems unlikely that State Troopers would behave so harshly to disabled persons unless they were merely following the Governor's orders.
Please Contact the Governor and tell him what you think:
Phone: 615.741.2001, Fax: 615.532.9711, Email: phil.bredesen@state.tn.us
Pictorial timeline of the Save TennCare protest inside the Capitol.
People who may die from Governor Bredesen's TennCare Axe here.
Previous posts on TennCare Protest
Tag: tenncare
