Oregon's Peter DeFazio is one of the 60 progressive Democrats in the House who has already pledged opposition to any health insurance reform bill that lacks a robust public option. He's had our back for as long as he's represented Oregon's fourth district, and so tonight, I had his back in return.
Turns out it wasn't necessary to have his back, since the audience was overwhelmingly pro-public option. But I'm glad I went anyhow. What follows are my notes on the questions asked by supporters and Palin-Americans alike, and The Faz's responses, which ought to be noted as a Progressive demonstration on how it is done. The Faz is not only a great guy but a master diplomat, regularly winning large majorities from both timber workers and environmentalists in Spotted Owl territory. Pay attention to how he does it.
First off, they had to move the venue from city hall to the ballroom of the biggest hotel in downtown, because of the overwhelming numbers who showed up. I went in a side entrance, clutching my pro-public option sign to my chest. Right away, this guy who looked like David Paymer (in hindsight, I'm really hoping this guy was hotel security or something, and not a DeFazio aide; otherwise, I'd say he really needs to work on his people skills) followed me in, saying, "OH, nonono..." and wagging his finger like I just insulted his buddy John Gotti. I thought I must have used the wrong door or something, but since all doors went directly into the ballroom, I was already inside and just hurried over to the nearest seats rather than walk back out and bump into the people behind me who were also heading for the seats. Paymer-guy kept following me, plucking at my coat. Turned out it was my sign, which I was holding so he couldn't read it. "Hey, you can't bring that in here!" I tried a wide, reassuring smile. He recoiled: "I'll get the cops! If you don't calm down I'll have the cops throw you out!" I turned my sign around and what it said was this:
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE PUBLIC OPTION! WE [heart] THE FAZ!
For once I was glad I had made a sign utterly devoid of snark.
He looked at it, made a guttural grumbling noise in his throat, and flounced off, at least as much as David Paymer can flounce. A few minutes later, a couple of police officers walked by, scanning the aisle for trouble. They barely looked at me. I guess the events of earlier Town Halls had made some people paranoid. And who knows what was up with that guy; other people had signs, including anti-Faz, and anti-health insurance reform signs (those were, natch, held only by bitter, sour-faced white people in rural clothes, their mouths puckered tighter than cats' asses. Could have been worse, their mouths could have been open and yelling).
The Faz got wild applause when he took the podium. He had prepared handouts about the House health bill that he supported, listing myths and realities, and he briefly summarized these points, told a few stories about people with insurance facing bankruptcy due to non-covered expenses and high premiums, pointed out that Medicare and Veterans benefits were "government health care", and pointed out that his pet issue as far as health insurance reform was to repeal the law exempting insurance companies from antitrust laws. They're allowed to collude on prices, raise them in unison, lower them in unison when some other competitor tries to enter the market, and in general screw their policyholders. It's hard to see how even a free-market conservative could justify that. The Faz has tried to bring up legislation to end this scam, but too many others in Congress are afraid of the big bad insurance lobby and its money, and so he can't get co-sponsors and his proposal dies in committee.
Here's how he handled questions: Numbered raffle tickets were offered to anyone who wanted to ask questions; they kept one part and put the other part in The Faz's bowl. Then he reached in and drew numbers. If your number was called, an aide with a mike came to you and you got to ask. Impossible to shout down, impossible to yell about favoritism and accuse the Congressman of only looking at raised hands in the front, or only calling on people he knew, or whatever. Great way to keep things orderly.
First question happened to be a Palin-American: "Medicare's going bankrupt, how can adding more people make it solvent? There's ads on TV: Get a wheelchair! It's free from the government! What are you going to do about all the waste?
The Faz Answers: Medicare isn't bankrupt. It is funded not only by the trust fund, but by premiums and Part D. The risk pool is improved when younger people, the ones who don't get sick as much, are added into the mix. Lifting the lifetime cap on benefits does not mean everybody gets every benefit they want. And the costs of public option insurance are certainly less than the costs of having the uninsured just go to the ER, which is what happens now.
Q: What's the Constitutional basis for Guv'ment health care?
A: The commerce clause. The courts have upheld the constitutionality of many programs using the commerce clause. If this bill were unconstitutional, we'd have to repeal ALL of them.
Q: How about putting a cap on the pay of big insurance CEOS? That would keep costs down and eliminate the profit motive!
A: Well, if the company isn't accepting taxpayer bailout money, it does have the right to pay the CEO whatever it wants. I would, however, support legislation to make them more accountable to the stockholders. Under the existing rules, if the shareholders had a meeting and voted for a resolution to cap executive pay, the board of directors usually doesn't have to consider that vote binding.
Q: What do you think of HR, um, I think it's 236, the "Senior Protection Act", it's about, oh, protecting the rights of seniors so we don't lose what we have, something like that?
A: I see so many proposed bills, I'm not sure I recognize that one from only what you've told me. I'll keep my eyes open.
Q: I read that you support [some local project that increases pollution in my area]. Well, let me tell you...
A: No, I don't support that.
Q: You don't? Oh....OK.
Q: What about coverage for MENTAL health?
A: We're not that deep into specifics yet, but I think it would have something. Employers like mental health coverage, because it reduces workplace absences.
Q: Please support immigration reform! NAFTA is killing farms in rural Mexico, and we're losing jobs here in the states because business luvs them some undocumented, easily abused labor forces. (Small cadre of supporters in front rows all hold up "Immigration Reform NOW" signs)
A: I voted against NAFTA when NAFTA was popular. And, politics makes strange bedfellos, here I am working with RON PAUL of all people trying to get the worst of NAFTA repealed.
Q: (Slow-talking guy with thick Slavic accent): I spent forrhteen yeeeerss behind zhe I-ron Cuhrtin, ahnd I KNOW ALL ABOOT zhe eeevilss uff soshialized medissin (Boo! Shame! Please--let him talk..)...ahnd ziss beel, eet ees NUT EEFEN CLOSE to zhat! (Yay, Woot, Hear-Hear!)
(I love these town hall meetings)
Q: Ooh! I know how we can save money! I work for a hospital and we have so many people in the billing department working only on recredentialing everyone from all the different private companies. Can we have something about standardized recredentialing?
A: Yes. In fact, my doctor thinks my annual checkup is his big chance to lobby me, and so I tend to have longer appointments than most of you, and he too pointed out that he has to hire more people for his billing staff than to help him actually treat patients. The costs are awful! So yes, the bill calls for standardized billing proceedures.
Q: How are we going to repay the costs of giving everybody free health care?
A: Let me summarize the whole history of our budget mess starting with Clinton leaving office with a projected surplus, then we had Bush expensive war, tax cuts on the rich, TARP...what I wanted was a provision to have bailout recipients repay that money themselves, but no...I was just about the only liberal to vote against the stimulus package for that reason...these deficits are caused by spending that doesn't give value for the revenue. I believe in spending that is an INVESTMENT in infrastructure--schools, roads, bridges...and health care infrastructure. I went to see people in Spittle County, and there's a water treatment plant there built by the WPA during the Depression, and it still works. I saw a Head Start building built by the WPA. Someday when our kids ask us why they're paying our debt, I want to be able to say, "You know that bridge we drove across today? We built that. You know what you did in school today? We rolled back all the cuts in education programs."
Q: What about Cap & Trade?
A: I'm against it. Did you know Cap & Trade, establishing pollution credits to be trades like commodities, you know who first proposed that? (pause) ENRON, THAT'S WHO!!!! (Boo! Hiss! Sucks!) And they've tried it in Europe, and a lot of traders got richer, consumer costs skyrocketed, and there are MORE emissions. Heck with that, I'm a co-sponsor with Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) to just have old fashioned regulation of pollution.
Q: Excuse me, you didn't call my number, but I really want to ask my question...
A: I'm sorry, but I need to follow the format. We'll have chaos if I don't.
Q: Can't we please at least put Single Payer to a vote?
A: It doesn't have a chance, but I'll vote for it. President Obama has made a choice: In a world where the majority has coverage, the first thing is to make sure that that coverage cannot be taken away. Only after that can we take steps to cover the uninsured. I've spoken with the President, and he tells me that if he were starting a new country, he would give that country Single Payer from the beginning; sice wer are an existing country that has evolved somewhat, we must be mindful not to destroy what we have. Evolution of civilization is a process. That said, Public Option is the compromise. Co-ops will NOT work. Some states have co-ops already, and they have failed to control costs.
Q: I'm a Palin-American. FOX tells me that this bill is over 1,000 pages, and since I can't read anything that long, I don't believe any member of Congress can read it either. All those countries with socialized health care---France is bankrupt from giving health care to a-rabs, and they want America to bail it out. 137% of Germans hate their single payer system, and we don't need to spend tax money on giving bad people health coverage. Instead, people should take some responsibility for themselves for once. They should exercise and they should have non-fucktard diets and then we wouldn't need any stinking insurance. Rush SAID so, and because he's the physically healthiest hunk of beefcake on the planet, we should listen to him.
(NOTE: I knew that last talking point would come around, eventually. It's Axiom Number One among neocons that anybody who wants or needs help from the government is a bad person who got in trouble from their own bad behavior. If your mortgage is foreclosing, it's because you refinanced many many times and bought luxuries you couldn't afford, every last one of you. If you lost your job, you weren't working hard enough, except if you lost your Fortune 500 company then it's because ThoseDamnLiberals regulated you to death, even when the government was controlled by conservatives. And so, naturally, every unaffordable health care problem in America is because Americans are fat lazy slobs who don't even bathe, much less look after themselves. We conservatives love our country soo much, even while we hate everybody in it)
A: Exercise is great. Too bad our schools are now cutting PE due to budget cuts, and making kids pay more--during a recession--to play after-school sports. You want responsibility? Our bill encourages responsibility. It encourages preventative care. Right now, the Emergency Room won't give you insulin if you can't afford it. It'll take you once you lapse into diabetic coma, and the ER doc will tell you, "I wish you had come in here two weeks ago, we could have fixed this. Now, I'm not so sure." Is that responsible, to have a system that does that? Is it thrifty? We need to treat people in the early stages, not wait until the problem gets out of hand.
Q: I ask my doctor what such-and-such will cost, and he can't tell me because the insurance is so random. There are no standard prices. My insurer paid $700 for my MRI; my uninsured friend was charged $1900 for the same thing!
A: This bill will crack down on mismanagement. Individuals have no bargaining power. They end up paying the full rate for everything, and the full rate is unaffordable, especially if you don't have the insurance because you couldn't afford it to begin with. We will reward outcomes, and penalize, for example, hospitals with high re-admission rates after treatment. We will empower the public option to negotiate reasonable costs for services; compare that with the Bush Administration, which FORBADE Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and gave Seniors on medicare a "donut hole" to make them pay full price for prescriptions.
Q: I'm part of an activist group, and I'm aware of the huge donations paid by big insurance and other companies to legislators. I'm aware of the huge, HUGE gap between what the people overwhelmingly want, and what Congress says it has the votes for. Where can I get some political clout insurance?
(I fell in love with this lady on the spot. She's my new hero, with I-ron Cuhrtin Guy a close second)
A: Please...write me, come to these meetings, read my web page. More important, talk to your neighbors who don't agree with you, try to bring some of them around.
Q: Let me tell you about New Zealand. They're the poster child for free market government, and THEY have a public option. They've also made "medical misadventure" claims no-fault. Americans are overpaying for health care and becoming laughing stocks.
A: Agreed. Max Baucus is COLLABORATING with Republicans. Fortunately, so far not a single House Democrat has signed on to his outrageous proposals.
Q: I'm concerned, because a lot of legislators who are preparing to vote on health care have accepted huge donations from...planned parenthood. Are they going to feel like they owe something to Planned Parenthood for their money? Grassroots activist groups have bought and paid for the whole government! I'm a complete moron from a planet many light years from this galaxy.
A: I guess you are. Planned Parenthood isn't even a registered lobbying group. They can't give donations. Also, I know abortion is a controversial issue, but I for one am not going to take us back to the bad old days of coathanger abortions. I don't think many people really want that. Under the public option, people with strong views will have a choice of a plan that provides full reproductive services, or a different plan in which they can rest assured that nothing in the plan will send any part of their payments to pay for abortions.
Q: Is there, is there some kind of a Hate Crime bill before this Congress?
A: I think so, yes, it's been pending there for years now, ever since the murder of Matthew Shepard.
Q: Thank you for your vote against Cap-n-Trade.
A: You're welcome.
Q: My COBRA is going to run out soon, and I'll have to turn to a terrible, expensive private plan with age-based rates. Can we get longer term COBRA benefits? I'm 55 years old.
A: I hope so. At the very least, we intend to make sure you don't lose your original policy if you lose your job. A high employer in my district went bankrupt this year. Their employees were paying their half of the premiums on their health plan, but the company was not, and now they're telling the people that they have to pay the full uninsured rate on procedures they've already had, after having paid the premmiums. something has to be done about that.
Q: The real high cost of insurance is from state mandates, and Medicare. Doctors are losing money on Medicare and then charging higher rates on everyone else to compensate. When you talk about "controlling costs", you really mean "controlling whether doctors are reimbursed AT ALL". You're just going to bankrupt all the doctors and then we'll have no health care at all.
A: That's not what the medical professionals in my district are saying. I've heard pharma lobbyists say to me, "Gee we're only allowed to make the big money in America, please don't change that. I tell them, maybe we ought to give the low prices to our own citizens first.
The good guys left this particular town hall happy. I hope the rest of DeFazio's meetings go this smoothly. He deserves it.