Yesterday eveing I attended a Health Care Town Hall with Representative David Price at NCCU in Durham. The event was attended by 850 people. Based on observations of people wearing stickers and holding signs, this audience was on the order of 90% in favor of President Obama's health insurance reform proposals.
Yesterday eveing I attended a Health Care Town Hall with Representative David Price at NCCU in Durham. The event was attended by 850 people. Based on observations of people wearing stickers and holding signs, this audience was on the order of 90% in favor of President Obama's health insurance reform proposals. Approximately 20 protesters were out front with signs like "Guard your Liberty", "Congress is Arrogant" and other non-sequiters. There a was also an amusing group out front with a clever mock protest with signs like "Hands of my Profits" and "No Health Care for Underserving Orphans"
Inside was mostly calm. Several people were escorted out by the police after making outbursts. Two men in their 20's, who were against health insuranc reform, were escorted out after one of them punched another attendee in the face. The moderator set up two microphones for questions with the request that those who were "anti" line up and one and those who were "pro" line up at the other with the obvious intention of giving equal time and access to both viewpoints. The "anti"s lined up at both microphones and asked most of the questions (or just made speaches) in attempt to make themselves appear to be in the majority in the room.
In the room, the ploy was humorously ineffective. Unfortunately, the local newscasts in the evening, in an attempt to appear unbiased, presented the event as "contested". If you only watched the local newscast you would be lead to believe that he audience may have been majority "anti" while the truth is that it was 90% "pro". Dissapointing by not surprising. I am not exactly sure what purpose these town halls are serving. Representive Price is strongly pro health insurance reform and strongly pro public option as are his constituents. I hope they are helping.