Video of Pat Meehan Town Hall Meeting Goes Viral and the GOP Begins Retreat on Medicare
In politics sometimes it's hard to feel like your voice is making a difference. But the Meehan Report likes to think that the vigilant residents of Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District played an important role in getting the GOP leaders in Washington, DC, to start to back off their efforts to privatize Medicate. The plan would raise health care costs for seniors by turning Medicare over to private, for-profit insurance companies and their million dollar CEO's.
The Meehan Report recently released video footage of Pat Meehan being confronted by angry constituents at a town hall about the promise he broke to protect Medicare when he supported Paul Ryan's Budget Plan. That footage, along with similar tapes released by other outraged citizens at other Republican town halls around the nation, was repeatedly replayed in news reports in the following days. Clearly, the Republican plan to gut Medicare was stoking genuine anger around the country, and that was certainly the mood in Delaware County on April 20th.
The Meehan Report’s footage of Pat Meehan being confronted at his town hall received prominent placing in television news show coverage on the town halls ranging from Hardball and the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC to the local ABC Sunday News Magazine Show “Inside Story”. The confrontation between Meehan and his constituents also made it into a lot of national print news stories, ranging from the Washington Post to Slate and was even in Rolling Stone!
In the wake of this coverage, news reports have started to trickle out in the past few days from Washington DC, that Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and even the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means committee, Dave Camp are starting to back off this plan. They realize that a plan that “fixes” Medicare by forcing seniors to choose between necessities like food and medicine is not a popular idea and is not popular among voters. Pat Meehan has yet to publicly declare that he will listen to his constituents on this issue, but we will continue to keep the heat on until he comes to his senses.
Just a word of caution: we are not declaring “Mission Accomplished.” By no means do we think that because it looks like we won this round that the fight to make sure Medicare is preserved is over. If recent history is any guide, we fully expect Pat Meehan and his GOP buddies to keep trying to weaken Medicare, even if that means doing it in ways that they don't think their constituents will notice. If you'd like an example of this tactic, take a look at our previous post about how they tried to redefine what constitutes rape after the nation objected to their first try, so they could push their anti-abortion agenda. It's for that reason that we will continue to remain vigilant, and think you should too.
We would like to acknowledge and congratulate the people of the 7th District who are not afraid to stand up to Pat Meehan and his GOP buddies and tell them that they made a big mistake. As we said at the start, a lot of times in politics it's hard to feel like your voice is making a difference -- in this case, however, we think it’s clear it did. Let's all keep up the good work, and make sure that Pat Meehan is keeping his promises, and making sure that he’s not balancing the nation’s budget on the backs of the people who can least afford it.
Cross-posted from Meehan Report