This Monday, on Capitol Hill at a Medicaid protest, Noah Wyle, the former ER star, was there too. Obviously not really a doctor, Noah Wyle was there to support disability rights and protest against Medicaid cuts. However, when officers started making arrest, they plastic cuffed anybody who wouldn’t abide by their requests, ER star or not. This Monday, Noah Wyle was arrested on Capitol Hill.
For many celebrities today the risk of getting busted by police officers is quite minor. That is if you’re not a rapper carrying marijuana (even on subscription) or a really bad driver. But as George Clooney showed earlier this year, there’s really no better reason to get busted than for civil disobedience.
Although Noah Wyle’s 11 seasons of ER is nowhere close to George Clooney’s experience as an actor and popularity for that matter, the news about the actor’s arrest did brought some light to the cause. In the end, that’s why he was there from the beginning, right?
Along with another 100 people, Noah Wyle joined a protest on Capitol Hill yesterday to protest against the decision to cut Medicaid. For Americans Disabled for Access to Public Transit (ADAPT), an organization looking after the rights of people with disabilities, the Medicaid cuts would result in putting more people with disabilities in nursing homes. The cuts would directly affect their ability to have nursing home care.
“Today, I took part in an effort by Adapt to bring attention to the Medicaid cuts that have been made by many States and are threatened to be made on a Federal level. This issue is about Civil Rights, not about medicine” reads the actor’s statement.
Noah Wyle expected to end the day in arrest as he told his kids and former wife, but he didn’t expect his first arrest to be so “surreal”. He said: “As soon as everybody saw me being led away, they let up a big whooping cheer, which made me feel really good”.
When told about George Clooney’s civil disobedience arrest for protesting in front of the Sudanese embassy, Noah Wyle replied: “Let George focus on the international. I’ll deal with the small domestic issues”.
