UPDATE - Sorry for not mentioning this was one of those "tele-town halls."
Why I am on this call? Well, simply put, I am bored and he called my house phone thinking he was my congressman. Pete must have forgot that Eddie Bernice Johnson is my congresswoman, but whatever. Old Pete, however, just got caught a little off guard. Seems like his "constituents" are calling in and asking him about health care and he has NO answers.
After hearing him defend the new poll tax laws in Texas, talk about how he wants to reform the VA and that it's the illegals taking services away (blah, blah, blah, regular talking points) a sweet old lady named Annette joined the call. Annette, as a self proclaimed life long republican and former precinct captain for the republican party, asked what the health care response was from her side. After the useless talking points she went off on Pete and he couldn't respond...classic. See below for more on the call.
I applaud Annette for holding him accountable. To be honest, I really thought this was going to be an Obama-bashing call, and Pete didn't fail in that regard, however his constituents did. But after Pete started on the why we need tort reform to lower health care cost and that will in turn cause more people to be covered, Annette decided to jump in.
Quite agitated by this response, Annette basically told Pete that he was full of it because, guess what, she is married to a doctor and the law Texas put in place hasn't done a damn thing to lower cost. Pete, obviously caught off guard, decided to argue with Annette and use stats (we can only imagine where those came from) to argue that in fact he was right. That is when Annette asked what he would do to get doctors to take medicare since most were starting to move away from it. Well, Pete started with the whole this is due to all the money that "Obamacare" was moving from medicare to other services and that is why this is happening. But Annette, not satisfied or flustered, pointed out that this has been going on well before "Obamacare" has been law and that the law hasn't even gone into effect. Well, poor Pete knew he had no outs here and needed to get off the call. So he tried to thank her for being a life long republican and move on, but Annette wasn't ready to let go. She asked him again, "what is the response from our side?" Again, no response besides the usual. She then told him how she has to pay for her children's healthcare (they are over 26 judging by her age and what she said) because they were both cut to part-time status so their employer could be relieved of providing benefits. Pete responded with the private market would solve this - yeah, right!
So she ended her questioning with the following, which I thought was awesome - "At least the President is trying to solve the problem!" And, obviously disgusted, parted with this last shot - "WE ARE IN TROUBLE IF THIS IS OUR RESPONSE."
This just made me smile so much. I don't know if this will make Annette vote for the president this November, but I do know that the more and more we talk about the ACA, the more and more people start coming around. Annette gave me hope that people are open minded and listening. What started out as curiosity, turned in to this blog; my first ever. I will be writing more soon - including my "Jonathan Krohn" metamorphis.
UPDATE: While writing this and continuing to listen to call, another caller named Bill (older gentleman and republican) asked Pete, "why can't we just try "Obamacare" and see if it works?" Pete claimed that he knows it won't work so that is why we can't try it - awesome rebuttal. However, after Annette, there would be no follow up questions allowed on this one. But I agree with Bill; let's just see if this works, because it will, and we will only make it stronger as the years go on.
Sorry for the length and any syntax issues. I wrote this fast as I am about to run out.
UPDATE X2: Whoa! Top of the rec list! Thanks so much! Never expected that on my first post. I appreciate all the comments, too.
Wed Jul 11, 2012 at 6:11 AM PT: Whoa! Top of rec list! Never expected that on my first diary. Thanks for all the comments, too.