Hands Off My Health Care

A week or two ago I got a postcard in the mail from Senator Arlen Specter (D/opportunist – Pennsylvania), announcing that he would be hosting a town hall meeting up at The Penn Stater (a hotel/conference center just north of State College in Innovation Park) this morning at 8:30am. I’ve seen and read a lot of coverage about various town hall meetings around the country in the last couple weeks, about how the overwhelming majority of people who are showing up are angry and upset about the proposed health care reform legislation that is currently before Congress. I decided that I wanted to be a part of that grassroots movement and add my voice to the mix, though I wasn’t planning to shout to show my extreme displeasure about the Obamacare bill.
I hoped that I would have the opportunity to ask Senator Specter a question. It would’ve been something like this: “Senator Specter, even if the federal government has constitutional authority to enact this legislation (which I don’t think they do), and if Congress and President Obama are really so concerned with lowering costs in order to enable more people to receive and afford care, then why not emulate a plan that has been demonstrated to work? Earlier this decade the state of Texas enacted medical malpractice reform, putting a cap on damages that could be awarded in malpractice lawsuits. That in turn caused malpractice insurance for doctors to cost substantially less money, which led to lower costs for patients, both out-of-pocket and through their own insurance premiums. Costs were also reduced because the doctors were set free from the shackles of needing to practice defensive medicine and order unnecessary tests, just because they were afraid of being sued for millions of dollars. Thousands more doctors have flocked to Texas as well, because of the reduced costs and risks of practicing medicine in the state, and this has increased access to health care, especially in rural areas that previously were lacking doctors. The Texas plan works. Why is medical malpractice reform not even being considered in any of the plans being put forward by Congress or the President?”
Okay, so that’s a bit of a long question, but that’s what I wanted to ask. I figured plenty of other people would ask if Senator Specter would commit to enroll himself and his family in the public plan if it was so great for us plebes, or confront/inform Senator Specter about any number of the abominable provisions in the legislation.
So I left my apartment at 8am and drove up to the Penn Stater. Turns out that was wayyyy too late to have a chance to get in. I got in line, even though I figured I’d get turned away. There were lots and lots of people that showed up. About 400 people were allowed in, but the remaining approximately 1600 people (including myself) were turned away (1600 was the estimate by the State College PD; prior to reading that estimate, I guessed that about 1500 had been turned away). There were also quite a few people who drove in and turned right around and left when they saw the long line. The crowd was very civil and normal. There was only one guy who was really shouting anything on occasion. There were no swastikas, contrary to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) asinine assertion. There were only a bunch of Americans there, representing wide swaths of society, including families, retirees, students, and average joes. And judging from the signs, shirts and stickers that people had, and from the conversations I had with people, the vast majority of the roughly 2,000 people who showed up this morning were completely opposed to the health care legislation. I’d put the percentage of people opposed at 80-90%. There definitely were some pro-Obama people there, but they were far outnumbered. Americans for Prosperity had a bus there with a petition drive to tell Congress, “Hands Off My Health Care!”, which I signed. The petition table was *very* busy, and they even ran out of petitions. One of the more ridiculous comments I heard today was from some college-age student who walked up to the petition table and accused them of being funded by big oil. They petition workers just laughed. The kid kept on for awhile, insisting that they were. But even if “big oil” were funding the petition drive, so what? What difference would that make? Does “big oil” funding something taint it, while Greenpeace or some union funding something not taint it? Anyway, here are some pictures I took of the event today:

After hanging around awhile and talking to a few random people I even was interviewed by a female reporter from the Associated Press. The lady asked me what got me interested in this issue, what made me passionate enough about the issue to cause me to go out there at 8:30am on a weekday for an event, whether I was active politically or part of some activist organization, how I found out about the town hall meeting, what some of my concerns about the legislation were, and what my name, age and occupation were. I haven’t yet found any news stories that quote me, but if you happen to find an AP story that does, please let me know! If I find any, I’ll be sure to link it here. At any rate, here are links to coverage of the town hall by the Centre Daily Times (our local State College paper) and the AP that I’ve seen so far.
And in case you’re curious about what’s actually in the bill, here’s a summary (with quotes) of some key points in the health care reform legislation by Duke University professor John David Lewis. Scary, scary stuff. This bill must be defeated.