My wife and I have been invited to a fundraiser for Harry Mitchell. On the face of it this is a great opportunity, I have been calling his office for months griping at his votes on FISA and his equivocation on healthcare but I find myself leaning towards not going. What would you do?
Harry Mitchell seems to be a very nice guy. A lot of people are very happy about his support for education and he seems to be doing good things for veterans.
But Harry represents a district that has a lot of republicans and he hides under the cover of having to represent the whole district in order to avoid having to take tough positions on such things as FISA and health care reform. Mr. Mitchell also happens to be a member of the blue dogs. Most Dems in the district are of the opinion that he does what he has to do to get elected and that he is better than a Republican would be. That seems like a depressingly low standard to hold someone to. He is no JD Hayworth but neither is a can of SPAM right?
His current position on health reform is that he is in favor of more 'options' but that he does not want to raise taxes or harm the 'competitiveness' of private insurers. All this is completely meaningless, if there are enough votes for strong reform he will be able to vote against it and he will be more than happy to maintain the status quo if he can call it a victory for taxpayers.
I would like to go to the fundraiser and ask him why the Blue Dogs are accepting cash from the insurers that screw us over continuously, but is this the right forum? I do not want to show up the hosts and I really don't want to give him any money.
UPDATE: The fundraiser was for only about 15 people so I was lucky enough to be able to discuss health care with him one on one for about 20 minutes. Here are a few observations from the congressman:
- The reform he is looking for is health insurance reform, not health care reform.
- Portability and no existing conditions are his priorities. Affordability next. Not much details on government oversight.
- Cost controls are a function of competition, he wants people to have access to more health insurance options, government option is not a priority but if it done he wants reimbursements to be higher than medicare
- According to the congressman 96% of voters have health insurance. This is important to note.
- According to the congressman the president's approval ratings with independents are going down because people are resistant to change, not because of government as usual fatigue.
- I asked him directly about taking money from health insurance companies, he did not respond.
- There will never be a single payer system in the US like the on in the UK.
- Reform needs to be paid for, he was resistant to the idea that raising taxes was a possibility.
Bonus: When I asked him about troop levels in Afghanistan and resistance to a build up in congress he indicated that he had not seen the latest information but there seemed to be a little room for resistance against expansion.