Last month I criticized Congressman Norm Dicks for not holding a town hall meeting on health care. Since then the congressman has changed his mind, and I applaud him for facing his constituents, although I think he was uncomfortable and not well prepared. But try as they might, attendees in the noisy crowd couldn’t paint the bulldog Dicks into a corner on any of HR 3200’s controversial sections.
The town hall was held last night at the waterfront-facing Bremerton Convention Center, adjacent to the ferry terminal. Whatever the meeting accomplished, it was probably held at one of most scenic settings of any town hall in the nation. My friend R. B. and I attended on a perfect late-summer evening. We sat next to a couple of pleasant, but decidedly anti-Obamacare, ladies from Fox Island. Theirs was the prevailing view among the estimated crowd of 1200, although there were plenty of supporters on both sides. I’m glad I went, but I came away disappointed—by the congressman’s simplistic answers, by people using the town hall to advance ideological positions, and by the minority who simply cannot let others talk without interrupting. You could put a gun to their heads and it wouldn’t matter.
Before the meeting about 20 people paraded signs around the room advancing their views. I’m showing my bias but my two favorites were: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s ‘free'” and “Medicare – Broke, Cash for Clunkers – Joke, Obamacare – Nope.” I joked with R. B. that he could have gotten some free advertising by putting his company name on a sign followed by “… Favors Improved Health Care.” When the meeting started the moderator asked that all signs be removed so as not to interfere with the Q&A. They were—quickly and without protest.
The congressman opened with a short PowerPoint presentation. He called health care a “crisis” and said we need to take the time to get the bill right. He talked about out-of-control costs, health care-caused bankruptcies, and harmful myths about the bill. He then repeated a few of his own like the slippery statement that you can keep your current plan. (You can but the bill’s restrictions will eventually end your plan as you know it.) One bit of news to me is that HR 3200 only covers 97 percent of the people. What’s up with that? Dicks is fixated on remedying the inequities in Medicare reimbursements. Perhaps his logic is that if the feds can just get to where they do Medicare right, they can run health care for all. When he finished making his other talking points you could have gone home, because, in some variation, they were also the answers to each of the roughly 35 questions from the floor. The biggest groan came when Dicks, carrying water for Obama, said the president won’t sign a bill that isn’t paid for.
Then came the Q&A. Nothing new here. The questions were all from areas of concern that have been heavily reported: tort reform, funding health care, illegal aliens, keeping [the questioner’s] plan, funding abortion, insurance vs. health care, insulting our intelligence, trampling on the constitution, and so on. I’m not criticizing the attendees, just observing that only so many things can be asked.
Dick’s style has always been straightforward and to the point. He’s not a politician who dances around an issue, impossible to pin down no matter how skillful the question. Things are black and white with Norm, and I found his approach troubling last night considering the stakes and complexities of health care. Several pretty good orators tried to make him own up to some of the fantasies in the draft health care bill. But they couldn’t box him in as he simply stuck to his talking points. He was helped here by a “quick mike”—that is, the moderators quickly moved the microphone to the next questioner after the congressman finished his answer. Sort of an “answered that, what else ya got?” approach. I came away thinking that if Congress is getting good input on the health care bills during their break, it’s not being carried back to Washington by my congressman.
Finally there were several attendees who view a town hall as a place to share the nightmares they are enduring in getting reimbursed for expensive medical conditions like dialysis or heart problems. While I am sympathetic, I wouldn’t personally ever do this. In some cases I noted a decided gap between the ability to tell a story and the ability to generalize about a problem. Interestingly, these speakers were the least likely to be interrupted during their monologues. I think the crowd helped them by listening and I would be humbled if they agree.
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