Its funny, I usually don't go to town hall meetings, if only because I am pretty busy most days. I think in my whole life I've attended three or four "town hall" meetings and listened to a pol. I knew Tampa's meeting last Thursday was starting at 6:00 PM and that we had best show up early. I had never been the the Tampa Children's Center before, so around 3:30 I got online and googled "Castor town hall tampa" and was immediately directed to three or four right wing blogs telling me of the importance of attending this town hall, one even gave the street address and a map. This was my first indication there might be a problem.
My wife graciously consented to go. This was despite a total of 5 minutes from the time I reminded her of my musings last night on the possibility of attending the event, until we walked out the door. She has a daughter who is determined to be a stay-at-home Mom and a hard working son-in-law, who makes $1.75 over the new minimum wage doing line clearance for a tree-trimming company. Neither of them have health care and they have a boatload of physical problems between them and their three kids. Their problems illustrate WHY we wanted to attend and put our two cents in. Not only haven't these two voted in their lives, they don't even KNOW there is a debate about health care going on right now. But they should have been the ones to go and listen, not us. On the other hand, dragging three kids, the oldest six years and the youngest 5 months, to a town hall meeting these days could be downright dangerous.
Several of the problems they have experienced are because of the free care they DO get. The old adage "You get what you pay for" could not be truer. A few months after the second child was born her daughter was told by a Medicaid doc to get rid of her still extended stomach, which was hurting her badly, by doing as many sit-ups as she could stand. After a month or so of this, she went to the emergency room where they determined she was a) pregnant again and b) in possession of a hernia which turned out to be over 6 inches in diameter. She was told "We can't operate, however, until 6-8 weeks after your son is born". Can you imagine the pain of being pregnant with you third child and having a hernia that large poking through your belly? Her "free" Medicaid did not include the special stomach supports she had to wear to stop her guts from spilling out further. Luckily, she does have us. Now, 5 months after the operation to fix the hernia, her belly looks almost as bad and its hurting her as bad as it ever did.
Well, the doctor who finally did diagnose the problem is no longer at the ER, which is her clinic du jour because none of the doctors who take new patients around here seem to like the new cost reimbursements from Medicaid. Or, as she calls it, "Her insurance". So naturally all doctor visits are 6-10 hour affairs at the local hospital. The ER has no idea why she's in pain, but they told her it had nothing to do with the recent corrective operation. Right. Her 6 year old goes into the hospital to have her ears "tubed" in a few weeks, but already she has lost 40% of her hearing due to a lack of any childhood care. She was born with a cleft palate, which the docs took over a month to even notice. Who is going to perform the procedure will be, as always, a crap shoot. I am sure there is a wingnut out there who feels that it is her fault for being born from bad bloodlines. Darwin and all, you know. The above explains our motivation to go and see the Congresswoman. We want to explain our desire, if not for a single-payer system like Britain's, then at least a strong public option. I strongly believe if we have single-payer cops and firefighters and single payer roads, we can do single payer health care. And if I want, I'll use a toll road when I need to or hire my own private security if I think that is what is needed. But, for God's sake, why should big Pharma and Big Insurance make a PROFIT off of one's health woes?
Its off to tony Ybor City to see who else might be interested in the "debate". As we neared the meeting site at 5:15, I noticed a line of cars leaving a very full parking lot. They were leaving because there was no more room in the lot. It turns out we should have gotten there at 3:00 PM instead of 5:15 PM. We noted an awful lot of seemingly normal people in a line which snaked around the building. By 5:30, to enter that line, you had to have parked about 400 yards away and walked through the blistering Florida sun to get there. OK, it wasn't really TAMPA blistering by 5:30-- it was about 95 degrees and 95% humidity. "Well", I said to my wife, "they'll let us in soon, they're probably just trying to judge the crowd's size". So, we passed the main entrance of the building, noting some with very crude, yet very large, signs standing around quietly, and we came around the side only to note a line of a few hundred feet MORE stretching around the building.
I saw someone I knew halfway through the trek to the back, a political organizer for the IBEW there with his family. After introductions, I asked what he thought of the crowd's composition. "There are a lot of nuts here", he said. I looked at the silent, mostly stoic faces of the 97% lily white crowd, mostly between 30-55, around us and told him I thought it was probably closer to 50-50. "Well", he said, "If you see two males coming in together, watch out. A lot of times that means trouble." I bid him good day and went to the back of the line.
Some proto-birthers got behind us with a sign that said something about socialized medicine and I told my wife to bite her tongue, that everyone was entitled to their own opinions. Then we started listening to our other immediate area line-mates. One woman told her friend, "Well, he told us this was a hastily called meeting, so I don't know why there are so many people here". Obviously Rush fans, as that was HIS take on the meeting - hastily called. I knew about it from published reports going back a few days, but hey, I am part of the other side with access to the left wing Internet, which is obviously a different internet than hers.
Then, the couple dressed in black in front of us (pasty white skin and their hip black garb, worn mid-summer in Tampa, told me these two probably don't spend much time outdoors on most days or weren't from around here) admitted six in line in front of them and it was only after some rather violent staring by the both of us that all but one lady left. The one lady who did stay behind, however, was part of some group they all seemed to belong to, since she was there to lend her "support". Then she started her harangue against Sotomayer, the country descending in anarchy and all the money Obama was spending (all by himself, with apparently no help authorization from anyone else).
As near as I can figure, someone opened the doors to the Children Center and must have admitted a hundred or so, as the line began to move. As we got to within 200 people of the entrance, the line stopped. This must have been the point where the police noticed the room had reached its fire code limits. Either that, or the wingnuts in line were right and this was all a conspiracy to keep them all out. About 1/3 of the people left. I am going to guess those people were possibly there in favor of either single payer or public option. Once the room filled up, they must have figured, why wait around?
But no later than 3-5 minutes later the ones left started chanting, demanding to "Bring it out here" (I am sure even the crazies INSIDE would have been pissed about this). Formerly staid, quiet people who once looked awfully normal to me, began screaming about every issue you can imagine. One guy had a shirt on that read, "If the Government had taken care of my health needs, I'd be dead by now". Obviously he had the exact same tumor as the Canadian lady who was told she had a 6 month wait for a brain tumor under the Canadian health system. Of course SHE could afford to come here and pay out the nose for private treatment, which must be completely illegal in socialistic Canada, right? So, I guess this guy put his trust (and life) into the hands of a private health insurer. Or maybe it was his doctor who attend to his needs, who knows? I DO agree with him, though, I know I don't want any government bureaucrat operating on me! Or third party private insurer, for that matter!
The best signs in my opinion were those wielded by people, obviously over 65, who wanted government to "Stay away from my health care". One guy kept handing out fliers to anyone who would listen to "Vote every incumbent out of office". And we thought we had problems with PROFESSIONAL politicians? Wait'll we see the amateurs get in there and REALLY screw things up.
Another big chant that started up around the time these geniuses started banging on the 6 foot high glass windows was "Read the bill". Last time I looked, there were several bills in the House, none in the Senate. So where is "The Bill" they were chanting about? This sounds like a Beckism. He has a VERY huge following in Tampa as, in the late '90s, he had what started out to be a very good local talk show. Then Clearchannel developed him into a "personality" and he started talking religion and free enterprise, as well as hawking cars and trucks. Perfect ClearChannel host, eh?
Of course, some on the public option side of the debate with 24" x 36" poster boards had hastily drawn up signs. Why does it seem like the right wing always has bigger signs than the left? Is this the visual equivalent of shouting? I also noted that the ABC affiliate, right in the midst of all of it, interviewed sign carriers exclusively. So, you want your five minutes of fame? Buy a big fat black Sharpie and get at least a two by three foot sign...
After taking some pictures and movies of all this and cheering on the middle-aged dancing lady with the public option sign, we decided to leave. As we got past the periphery of the crowd we noticed a young black couple standing around watching all of this. The guy had a goatee and was very intellectual looking to my eyes. I looked at him, looked at the still shouting crowd and said, "What a bunch of white Republican idiots". To which his girlfriend said, "Hey, mister, WE ARE PROUD REPUBLICANS". My next diary will be a hundred entries saying, "I will never again stereotype anyone. I promise."
So, right there outside a crowd of white southern crazy people we "debated" for a little while. Turns out the guy was intelligent, philosophical and not quite as "right" as his wife (SHE was a kook). More of a Blue Dog ex-Libertarian party type. He was very well read. We had a pleasant discussion, but I could not resist as we shook hands to leave telling him, "I've always admired the ultimate health care slogan".
"What's that", he said.
"Why Marx said it best, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'". His mouth was still open as walked away.