A Health Care Reform Town Hall Meeting

Insurance companies and hospital corporations have buddied up with simple-minded conservatives to block health care reform. The bad news is that they are winning.

Last week in Bryan, Texas, Representative Chet Edwards (D-TX) held a town hall meeting to discuss health care reform legislation. Mr. Edwards, a nine-term Congressman, may not have been surprised at his reception, or at the fact that the audience seemed not to be listening to him. He had to stop more than once to ask the audience to respect his right to answer their questions.

The meeting, which was sponsored and broadcast on WTAW-FM, a conservative talk radio station, seemed more geared to sending a message to Washington that people hate the idea of helping others. Perhaps they only hate poor people and illegal immigrants. Whatever message they wished to send, the room was full of angry, hateful people. The attendees, who were overwhelmingly conservative, stayed on message. They could recite their talking points as if they magic incantations.

Notice of the meeting appeared on the front page of the local newspaper the day of the meeting. The local branch of the Democratic Party also notified members of the meeting by e-mail. Both the newspaper article and the e-mail told readers not to bring signs. Either the local conservatives cannot read, or the rules simply do not apply to them, because there were plenty of signs, all with the conservative message: Abolish the government.

The signs ranged from "No forced abortion" to "Stop destroying our constitution." The audience booed at the mention of AARP, and they shouted "Why?" when told that the legislation called for a tax on people who made $450,000 per year or more. I am fairly certain that there were fewer than five people in the room who make that much money.

At one point, Mr. Edwards asked for a show of hands from those who would abolish Medicare and Social Security. Many people raised their hands. The message they carried was simple. There is too much government, and they want everyone to take care of themselves. It seems unlikely that any of them had ever seen a contemporary hospital bill.

All the rumors, of death panels, care rationing and long waits for tests were brought up, and nothing the congressman could say seemed to satisfy the audience, because they did not go to obtain information.

Not much the congressman said was satisfactory to liberals, either. He pledged to vote against any law that included a single -payer system. He spent some time explaining what the house bill contained. From his explanation, it looks like the federal government, with the help of a lot of lobbyists, is going to bring home the bacon to the insurance companies.

There will be rules for insurance companies to follow, eventually. All of them will make good progress toward creating an environment where two or three large corporations control all the health care insurance in the country. Regulation drives down competition, and while there will be provisions for other kinds of health care financing, the main thrust of the bill will be to extract more money from more people, and let the insurance companies continue to refuse to pay for care whenever they want.

Insurance companies will be able to sell more insurance. They will not be able to refuse to cover people with pre-existing conditions, but that does not mean that they cannot make a killing from covering them. There is likely to be something equivalent to assigned risk pools in auto insurance. The people in these pools will be those with chronic health issues and pre-existing conditions. They will pay more, and likely get less coverage.

There will be incentives for doctors to go into family medicine, but there will be little or no incentive for insurance companies to pay for care. At this point, it seems unlikely that there will be any kind of public option.

So, once again, the big corporations, which own most of the government through campaign contributions, have convinced conservative lemmings to rush over a cliff en masse, against their own best interests and common sense. It's really a shame that they are so intent on taking the rest of the country with them.