I attended the Everett, WA health care town hall last night at Memorial Stadium. The only member of congress there was Rick Larsen, who represents us in D.C.
The event was scheduled to start at 5pm and the Snohomish County Democrats had a rally outside the venue starting at 3pm (a good plan).
The event was emceed, briefly, by the local Civics teacher who, incidentally, coached Rep. Larsen in high school football years ago. They sang the national anthem (we were all trying to find the flag...it's tiny and was hung way out over the centerfield wall. More over the flip...
This is going to read a little rough for a diary, but I'm cutting and pasting from my action.firedoglake.com post (I'm not sure it took so I'm capturing the information here so it isn't a complete waste!). The event took place at Memorial Stadium in Everett, WA. Memorial Stadium is a high school and local minor league baseball field. They had two staffers and one microphone which they ran back and forth with.
The town hall was a bit boisterous, but remained fairly civil. Lots of signs, most of them interesting or not all that provocative... Disturbing signs in attendance were:
- about 3 huge Anti-Abortion signs showing aborted fetuses which they dutifully parked right at the end of our row and, occasionally, tried to march up and down the stands
- one sign reading "Cut off his ACORNS"
- a whole panoply of the LaRoche Obama-nazi pictures
The questions and comments were varied and mostly focused on healthcare...however, it was pretty common for the questions to get snagged on illegal immigrants, convoluted technical concerns which the congressman couldn't answer off the top of his head ("if I have large employer insurance but some circumstance in that coverage changes, it sounds like then I'm suddenly in the exchange?"), and long-winded speechifying about deficits or constitutionality of health care or something.
Big applause lines were to do with "no federal dollars will go to treat illegal immigrants" and "ending rescissions and discrimination for gender/age/existing conditions." It was amazing to me how many people were there who were convinced that medicare was a wasteful, failed program. Also amazing to me (you knew it had to happen) was the woman who said "well, my husband and I made certain choices about who was working so we could make sure we had good health insurance for our kids...I don't want the government taking my money to give coverage to irresponsible people, it's all about making responsible choices, you could get a job at McDonalds and get decent health care insurance (wow-really?)"
The attendees were varied...everyone from Single-Payer advocates (HR 676) to moveon.org to LaRoche Obama-nazis to Ron Paul republicans... many folks were just ordinary people there to listen or advocate for what they think is the best idea. Out where we sat, in the wings (not way at the end, but half-way out) of the bleachers, most folks were not carrying signs. Down in the middle, right in front of the congressman, is where I saw many people who would qualify as "screamers."
The congressman did a good job of ignoring them, for the most part. He clearly stated he does not support single-payer...saying that the bill is poorly worded/structured and is vague on important points. He clearly argued in favor of HR 3200 for its improved Medicare formula, it's end to rescissions and gender/age bias in insurance.
I think that the one place where he was interested in getting feedback from the crowd was on public option. He was pretty firm about defending HR 3200, but the one thing he kept subtly dangling out there was the issue of the public option coming to a vote in September (MAKE THOSE PHONECALLS TO HIS OFFICE IF YOU WANT HIM TO SUPPORT PUBLIC OPTION!)
The video link is not my own, but it's very good at showing the format and what it sounded like to be in the crowd:
Larsen scoffs at Fox talking points: "I"ve got facts, you've got Glenn Beck"