The past 24 hours have brought more town hall anger, the arrest of a protester calling for “Death to Obama,” and an attempt by one congressman to keep cameras out of a raucous meeting. Here’s your fix of the latest town hall activity around the country:
In New York, Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner’s staffers tried to bar WCBS cameras from covering his town hall Wednesday night. Later, the congressman himself insisted that “this isn’t for channel 2. This is for my constituents,” even as the station noted that the event was a public forum.
Weiner eventually relented and let cameras into what turned out to be raucous affair. “Let’s look at the whole picture. You guys are stealing from us,” one attendee said, while others charged that they were being threatened. Things eventually calmed down and Weiner told attendees that he favored a single-payer system. He said “this is not going to be free” and said funding could come from the health insurance company profits and overhead.
In Pennsylvania, Representative Joe Sestak, who is challenging Arlen Specter for the Democratic 2010 Pennsylvania Senate nomination, hosted 650 “overwhelmingly civil” people at his town hall Wednesday night, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Many of those who showed up were supporters of health care reform. “We just haven’t been getting our story told” at the town halls, one said. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, mention of a public health care option at the meeting prompted “wild applause.”
Not that there weren’t dissenters, including a Lyndon LaRouche supporter outside the event offering handouts showing President Obama with a Hitler-style moustache. Inside, the Daily News reports, one of the critical questions came from a veteran who shouted: “How can you tell me the private option will stay in place when my employer with 29,000 employees can just turn around tomorrow and say ‘We’re writing that off the bottom line; you guys are all going to the public option?'”
Sestak responded by noting that the bill “mandates that the employer has to keep the health-care plan he has with you.”
Earlier this week at an Arlen Specter town hall meeting in Pennsylvania, a photographer was “pushed by an audience member once they realized she was working for The New York Times,” according to photographer Damon Winter.
In Maryland, authorities detained a 51-year-old man who showed up at a town hall Wednesday held by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin with a sign reading “Death to Obama,” the Associated Press reports. The sign also said, “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids.”
In Alabama, hundreds of polite people packed into a town hall held Thursday morning by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, according to WHNT News. Sessions said he wished health insurance looked more like car insurance, where pre-existing conditions and the place one works don’t come into the equation.
He also said people who have good health care now are scared by reform efforts. “They worry they may lose something they count on every day,” he said.
In Oklahoma, another Republican senator, Tom Coburn, held a town hall in which many attendees worried that health care reform is “being rammed down my throat,” as one uninsured rural Oklahoma woman put it, according to NewsOn6.com.
Coburn said the government is getting involved in areas it doesn’t belong.
“Any bill that comes out of the Congress that spends more money is failure,” he said. “What we need is a better value not to spend more. We ought to make sure we can cover everyone in this country for less money than we are spending now. Giving better quality and a better outcome though we can’t do that with the government running it.”
President Obama is hosting a town hall Friday in Montana, and it could be rowdier than his relatively restrained event in New Hampshire earlier this week. Politico reports that “tickets for the Montana event are being handed out on a first-come, first-served basis at two locations in the conservative Bozeman, Mont., area,” which could mean a higher percentage of attendees who oppose the president’s efforts.
(Source: CBS News)
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10 Responses
The rowdier and ruder the opponents get, the more likely the issue will be decided based on “what do you think of the protestors” rather than on the merits of Obama’s well intentioned but poorly thought out of plan (he seems to be looking at Hillary and Jimmy Carter for models on how to govern).
Sestak responded by noting that the bill “mandates that the employer has to keep the health-care plan he has with you.
It is completely baffeling that these bone heads dont READ the bill and KNOW the bill before they start flapping their gums because it also says in the bill that if there are ANY changes to your insurance, you have to go with the public plan.
I know there are many Obamaites out there who think he can do no wrong but the govt doesnt belong getting involved in our healthcare. They spin this that its against the insurers but that was only because the people werent biting. Health, be it insurance, coverage, or doctor dealings of any sort are for ME to decide not some Obama hack in DC.
You dont turn over a system for only 5% of the population unless you are a socialist like Obama.
I read on Newsmax.com yesterday that Homeland Security has taken over the administration of the Secret Service. They are tightening the reigns on their budget. What has happened that starting with Bush, the security precautions with the President have become more lax even more so with Obama. I hope Obama reads Newsmax for his own sake. I know someone in the White House reads the Rasmussen polls.
Mark,
Shouldn’t you be objecting to Medicare and Medicaid, the two largest health plans in the country, which are both government run (but poorly financed). You should give your solution to provide universal health care at a level that doesn’t involve rationing.
P.S. My solution would be to include everyone in Medicaid, reduce Medicaid to a level common in the poorer states, and anyone not wanting to be in Medicaid gets a voucher equal to the cost of Medicaid, and gets to buy a policy within the FEHBP (the civil service, including Congress, plan).
1 akuperma,
“Well intentioned?” Isnt that what the road to hell is paved with? The problem is Obama is taking us all down that terrible road of socializm.
Keep an eye on the news (and not MSNObama, APObama, ReutersObama, etc) and you will see more & more these protesters are planted by the Obama/Union/Acorn animals.
Why arent there are massive protests etc., at town hall meetings held by people against the bill?
The country is waking up to Obama, what he stands for, where he has already taken us, and where he wants to take us. We are trying to tell Congress their jobs are on the line too but they dont know what to do. I guess you cant blame them as this is really the first time any of them are being challenged by us – the people who voted them in and who will vote them out. No longer will they get a free pass.
A little note to #1, president obama is in no way well meaning. He is simply a socialist. He’s trying to fool the american people and ram this bill down out throats.
Car Insurance does NOT support pre-existing. Try to get insurance after the accident! They DO base your rates based on your driving record AND your car’s safety record, just like Health Insurance.
Health Insurance is an INSURANCE, not a free health system. It is made for people to buy before they are sick and their risk is low, and then the insurance company spreads that risk between all it’s customers. Otherwise it’s like buying life insurance after the person dies….
Some Liberals seem to have a hard time understanding this concept…
Reply to #1: The crowds are not there to stop the liberals Democrats from liberal states. You cannot stop them. They are there for the conservative democrats & liberal republicans from conswrvative leaning states. And you can be sure they are getting the message, “Vote for this one, and you are out if here”.
#8 – everyone understands – the issue is should someone be denied health care because they have cancer, or are pregnant, or obese, or belong to a group that is likely to have costs (such as Orthodox Jewish women who are very big consumers of health care during their child bearing years).
The auto solution is to force people who have accidents to give up driving. Very few Americans, including conservatives such as Sarah Palen, would favor a solution under which people with “something wrong with them” (wrong as in causing high health costs) would be forced to give up living.
charliehall,
Medicare is run by the govt and they shouldnt be involved in that either. I am not saying to kill the elderly, that would be the job of the house bill. The problem is once you get into this mess you cannot get out of it. What did people do before medicare? I dont think they were dropping dead on the streets! There has to be a way but it doesnt involve taking the best healthcare system in the world and turning it head over heals for only 5% of the legal population.
There are very good ideas on the table from the Right but the left wing socialists in congress as well as your almighty president are not interested in anything less than single payer (i.e., government control).