The Congressional Town Meeting

I went to Rep. Kind's town hall meeting on health care reform. Most of those attending were sincere people with valid concerns, but also a lot of wing nuts. The wing nuts stood at the back hooting and jeering. They looked like an assembly of town cranks. One randomly shouted "freedom!". Old ladies, Medicare eligible, with bouffant hairdo's shook their heads affirmatively as the cranks marched to the microphone, and told folks how they wanted the Government out of all health care. One old guy told me he had "given up" Medicare. He said he got Blue Cross for $100/mo. He was confused, obviously describing his Medicare Supplement policy, but he was nonetheless prideful about “kicking the government out”. Too many were like the lady who told Barney Frank at one of his town meetings that health care reform is a Nazi plot. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8. He told her that addressing her was like arguing with the dining room table. That's how I felt about a lot of these nuts. One lady, apparently a clerk in a doctor’s office harangued the congressman about the ‘irresponsible” people who “won’t pay their bills”. She didn’t seem able or willing to consider for a moment that many self-employed and working poor might not be able to pay. A local veterinarian in what looked like a blue prison jump suit, said he wanted to get back to just the doctor and a patient, no insurance, no government. He said he works payment out with his patients and so should everyone. I believe, at least I hope, that his patients are animals. Sneering old men with sheaves of paper crumpled in their fists strode like Marshall Dillon to the mike and harangued Rep. Kind, who sat there smiling the same at critics and supporters. What was accomplished? I gained a whole new awareness of the power of the media to scare the wits out of folks with paid lies and distortions. I also saw in the young congressional aides standing about what looked like amused aloofness. For myself, I found very little that was funny in this American tragedy. Twenty two thousand unnecessary deaths a year for the uninsured is just not funny to me. Strangely, none of the opponents suggested alternative means of ending these unnecessary deaths. I don't think they considered these tragic deaths to be any of their business, and certainly not a moral responsibility.

Family Civil War Part 2

Bro wrote:

If the Health Care issue never arouse, you wouldn't be arguing with mom. And you know what really ticks her off more than anything...abortion. 67 million kids have been murdered since the mid sixties in the US alone. Now that's an issue we should be debating. Death has already happened. Without a National Health care plan, we're assuming many will be lost. Are people dying or suffering now any more than they did in the past? There has never been a national health care plan.

It all comes down to an extended life issue, whether it's health care or the abortion issue, the economy we're all fighting for an extended life for ourselves and our loved ones and those we know that suffer. If the National Health care plan passes, does that guarantee that you'll live longer than you will without it, or anyone live longer. How do you know how long people will live, with or without health care, do you have ESPN. Many people with good health care die every day, I see it at the hosp. So how many more will live longer than they would anyway without health care. AM not saying that health care isn't necessary, it is. But so is family, exercise, working, trusting God, etc.

Do you seriously think that Conservatives and Christians want people to die? Just because they don't believe the health care plan pushed by Obama agrees with their interest. That's sad if you do. I don't want people to die or suffer, even though I'm not excited about a national health care plan.

We need to stop angering each other over any issue, debate and discussion o.k., but not hate. I certainly don't hate you or am I angry about what you say or do. I can certainly tell in your emails that you seem to hate people for not agreeing with you. What happened to democracy, what happen to love.

You want to be able to disagree vehemently with many, but get mad and attack the ones that disagree with you.

We all need to step back and put love first.

Love ya Bro.

Terry
-------------------------------------

I Replied:

Cheap Tactic calling me a "hater". (editorial comment)

Bro:

I love ya but I have to tell you and mom that you are wrong. I don't even think it is so much the health care issue as it is the national debt. I believe that decent people want others to be able to get medical care, but they worry about the country going broke. We bailed the bankers for three times the 10 year cost of this reform cited (erroneously I think) by the worst case scenario of the critics. They don't cite the anticipated cost increases if nothing is done, which far exceed the reform model with its cost containment measures.

If 22,000 unnecessary deaths a year doesn't affect your thinking about things how can you defend being pro-life? Shouldn't we all be fired up about that? The infant mortality rate would be much higher if not for Federal Medicaid and WIC, both of which would be called "socialism" by these same critics (as would Medicare). I haven't heard the same critics calling for an end to these programs, which they should if they were logically consistent, but they know nobody would listen to them then.

Babies of uninsured mothers are at higher risk of infant mortality. Even after controlling for important explanatory factors like age, income, and health and
pregnancy history, babies born to low-income uninsured mothers are 60 percent more
likely to die in the first month after birth.

source:

http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/Access-to-Care-for-the-Uninsured-An-Update.pdf

The U.S. has a higher infant mortality rate than all other developed countries. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States

How Does Being Uninsured Harm Individuals and Families?

* Studies estimate that the number of excess deaths among uninsured adults age 25-64 is in the range of 22,000 a year. This mortality figure is more than the number of deaths from diabetes (17,500) within the same age group.8
* Lack of insurance compromises the health of the uninsured because they receive less preventive care, they are diagnosed at more advanced disease stages, and once diagnosed, tend to receive less therapeutic care and have higher mortality rates than insured individuals.9
* Controlling for age, race, sex, and income, uninsured cancer patients are 1.6 times more likely than insured patients to die within five years of diagnosis. 10
* The high cost of health care can damage the overall economic well-being of families. One in three low-income parents without coverage report medical bills have a major financial impact on their families.11
* On average, the uninsured are 9 to 10 times more likely to forgo medical care because of cost and twice as likely to have medical debt. 9
* The uninsured are increasingly paying “up front” -- before services will be rendered. When they are unable to pay the full medical bill in cash at the time of service, they can be turned away except in life-threatening circumstances.12
* Access to an emergency room for uninsured patients does not qualify as access to coordinated care. While physicians are required to stabilize patients in an emergency, they are not required to treat the condition comprehensively. 13
* Over the last decade, disparities between the uninsured and insured widened in access to a usual source of care, annual check-ups, and preventive care, and are the greatest in disparities and our growing.

Medicare Eligible Thugs against Health Care Reform

Have you been watching the news coverage of the congressional town meetings? They are being disrupted by people shouting down any intelligent discussion of Health Care Reform. The news media have shown copies of written instructions on how to disrupt meetings being given to them by Republican Activists. When I was a young man in the 60's opposing the war, I would have been drug out and beaten by the police for doing something like that. We were peaceful protesters.

Have you noticed that all of the shouters seem to be oldsters well over sixty five. They are on Medicare! They are recipients of government run health care, and there they are shouting down people trying to extend some (but by no means all) of the benefits they themselves get from the government to their children and grandchildren. Talk about gall! These recipient terrorists are sparking a generational war. The last I heard, Medicare is going to be broke in 2017. I guess I will advise the young ones to shout at their Congresspersons to let it die. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Let's throw them out into the current American health care system that they think is so good for everyone but them. Let's see if they can get coverage. I'll bet that a lot of them couldn't at any price. That would put them where a lot of the rest of us are.

It is shameful to see these old government Social Insurance Beneficiaries shouting to deprive others of what they themselves have. Are they so pampered that they can advocate for illness, disease, and death from lack of health care access for their own children and grandchildren. As a parent and grandparent, I believe I should help to make life better for my younger relatives. I and my wife have sacrificed to be a help for them because buying a home, and raising a child is no easy matter. Apparently some oldsters are so self absorbed that basic health care for their own means nothing.