Report from a town hall meeting Wednesday August 26, held in Johnston RI
Here is a report on what happened Wednesday night at a town hall meeting in Johnston, Rhode Island.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at 5:30 pm and I got there about 4:15. There was already a line of about 80 or so people.
After getting in line I heard someone in back of me talking about government run health care programs and how they enslave us. I couldn't resist the temptation. I walked over and told him that I am on Medicare and could he please explain to me how I am being enslaved? He hemmed and hawed and couldn't seem to find words so I asked again and again got no response. He mumbled something about Medicare being unable to fund itself so I asked him if he thought Medicare should be abolished. Again I got no response so I pressed the point again and once again he stuttered and stammered and gave no response so I walked back to my original place in line.
Next to me there was a man with a sign which read, "No health care for illegal aliens". I engaged him in conversation and told him that there would be no health care for illegal aliens. He insisted that somehow or another illegal aliens would eventually get coverage. I told him he should ask that question during a meeting but he said he would not because he did not believe what the Senators had to say.
A young man in his 30s stood beside me and we engaged in a discussion about health care. He too opposed the bill but on the grounds that the free enterprise system could do it better. He was very polite and we had a good discussion both agreeing that the system is broken and something had to be done. He was not by any means a fanatic and was, in fact,quite knowledgeable about his point of view and even though I disagreed with his ideas for reform and he disagreed with mine, the discussion was calm and respectful.
I met a young man who oppose the plan and who told me he had one child and they asked him what he would do if that child have a serious illness like Down's syndrome. He looked at me , and in all seriousness, told me that he was not going to pay for anyone else and he did not expect anyone to pay for him. He said that in the event he had such a child he would pay for such treatment by mortgaging his house. I didn't think of it at the time but I should've asked what he would do if that was not sufficient.
Things turned heated when a woman showed up offering me literature. I recognized her as being part of a group displaying signs comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler. I exploded! I told her that my father was a combat wounded veteran of World War II and my friend Larry had an aunt Betsy with a tattoo on her arm from the time she spent in a concentration camp. I practically yelled at her saying that to equate a health-care bill with Nazism was reprehensible! I think I took her by surprise. She seemed to hesitate and act stunned and then said to me, "So you don't want any literature?" In the same forceful tones, I said, "No! And I think what you are doing is disgusting!" Everyone around me nodded in approval and I can assure you the majority of the people there carried signs supporting the idea of health-care change.
In groups of 10 we entered the room where Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed were to address the meeting. Altogether I would estimate a little over 200 people attended.
First we had the obligatory macaroni and meatballs, without which nothing in Rhode Island can ever be accomplished!
The meeting began with a woman relating her story about the problems she encountered in dealing with the health care system. She related incidents of several people in her family who needed care including one which touched home to everyone in Rhode Island. Her daughter was seriously burned in The Station nightclub fire. It's a tragic incident that occurred several years ago killing several hundred people and it's seared into the memory of everyone in this state. Whenever it is brought up it touches a sensitive nerve. You can look it up online to read the entire story.
Her daughter was seriously burned and eventually died. The total bill for treatment was over 3 million dollars and she had no insurance to cover it.
Then came the questions and first question and comment was from a woman who forcefully stated she said she was perfectly satisfied with the insurance she had to did not want any changes. She received loud applause from one table when she demanded the government stay out of health care. She was somewhat older and so when Senator Whitehouse asked "What kind of insurance do you have?" we all knew what was coming. She said she was on Blue Cross. Blue Cross for Medicare! The crowd laughed.
She was informed that Medicare was a government run program but surprisingly the same statement about keeping the government our of the health care system was posed by another woman and a man and, once again, both revealed their insurance to be Blue Cross Medicare and both were greeted with laughter.
Surprisingly, the man with the illegal aliens sign, who told me he would not ask a question, did ask and was told there was an effort to curb illegals but it failed and that to add that topic on the health-care bill would be impractical. He was assured, however, that no provision for medical insurance for the illegal aliens was in this bill. The same question came up again later in the discussion when a man stood up to ask question about the medical bill which turned into a long bitter rant about illegal aliens.
Another man said he was from Germany and claimed the health-care system was much better there. Someone in the audience shouted, "Why don't you go back!"
There was some shouting by dissenters but it was not overwhelming and any outbursts were quickly silenced by the majority. Both senators listened fully to the questions being posed to them and answered in a calm and friendly manner. This did actually seem to work as I noticed many hostile questioners shaking their heads in agreement as the senators responded to their individual concerns. Of course there were the hard-core dissenters and it was obvious that nothing would change their minds. But they were few in number. It was clear the overwhelming majority supported a health-care bill.
One man stood up and related how similar attacks were made in Medicare was originally proposed back in the 60s. He recounted the name calling and fear mongering that attended that discussion and quoted Ronald Reagan as predicting the end of freedom in America if Medicare ever passed. He received a loud round of applause.
But the biggest applause and the most effective comments came from a young doctor who identified himself as being from Brown University. Dressed in a white uniform with a stethoscope around his neck and an identification badge, he said that in his opinion the vast majority of doctors support of this bill and that the current system was extremely wasteful. He said recently a man had come to him with a bone disease. He said I could have treated him with pills which would've cost $80 a day and I believe he said the treatment period was 10 weeks. But whatever reason the man had no insurance and so we had to put him into the hospital where he received treatment which, because of his situation, he was not obliged to pay for. The bill, of course, has been passed on to the rest of us. Instead of $80 a day for pills, the bill came to $2000 a day! He said this is just one of many instances he and his fellow doctors could relate.
He received a very loud round of applause when he finished and Senator Whitehouse commented that his remarks were all the more credible because he came from the health care industry.
I did not get a chance to ask a question but the Senators stayed after the meeting and said they would take questions.
I asked Senator Whitehouse if he would support a health-care bill if it had no public option. He seemed to think very hard on this question before we gave me his answer. He told me he might support such a bill but only if he could be assured that there were other ways of keeping insurance costs in check and then he added that he thought such a possibility was very unlikely.
Overall mood of the meeting was positive. There were some who struck me as citizens with serious questions. There were just a handful of what I would consider a hard-core dissenters who had no intention of learning anything and whose sole purpose seemed to be to convince others of their point of view. They occasionally tried to shout things out but were immediately hushed by the rest of the audience. And then, of course there were those with Hitler-Obama signs. I would guess maybe 15 altogether and very few seem to be in support of them.
Overall I would describe this as a lively, good spirited meeting with lots of clapping, occasional dissenting shout outs and counter shout outs all in the best of the town hall tradition.