A couple hundred people showed up in a parking lot next to Everett’s Memorial Stadium yesterday afternoon for a town hall hosted by Democratic Congressman Rick Larsen, who represents Washington’s 2nd District. Some of them supported health care reform; the teabaggers, carrying signs like pitchforks, did not.
“Stop Advancing Socialism,” one of their signs said. “What’s Next, Soylent Green?” another asked. A few in the crowd wore stickers declaring themselves a MOB, or “Massive Obstacle for Barrack” (yes, spelled exactly that way). A massive 66-item flow chart showed how a government-run system would supposedly work:
Larsen has so far been the only Washington Congressman to fully embrace the town-hall format, while others have been reluctant to face the teabaggers. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Vancouver), however, recently changed his mind and said he will have five town hall meetings in his district. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) is now planning two. And Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) showed up at the 34th District Democrats’ meeting last night—although their Website made sure to say, in red, bold, capital letters “THIS IS NOT A TOWN HALL MEETING.” McDermott, arguably one of the most vocal proponents of health care reform (and an M.D. himself) also has a town hall in the works.
By 5:00 p.m., the dueling crowds moved into the stadium. Dressed in Congressman casual—a white, buttoned-down shirt relaxed with rolled-up sleeves and jeans—Larsen handled the hecklers fairly well, standing at a microphone behind home plate. Indeed, about half the crowd supported health care reform, and a raucous, middle America town hall meeting we’ve seen so far this week it was not. Still, even when Larsen cited a specific section of the health care bill, a few teabaggers responded with shouts of “Liar.” Larsen did what he could to dismantle that idea. He told the crowd the reform bills are about the size of the typical Sunday Everett Herald or a Harry Potter book.
“I think there are improvements that could be made in the health care system, but I think they could be made without the expansion of government,” said Jeannette Sumpter, a protester from Bothell. She said she has had “really good luck” with her private insurance. Sumpter thinks Obama’s reforms could mandate government-run insurance, is being pushed on the public too quickly, and can’t be paid for. She worried about the government intruding into her health decisions.
“I would rather lose my benefits than have the government pay for them,” Sumpter said.
A few protesters lingered way out in lunatic territory—only one sign said anything about how health care reform would “kill Grandma.”
In the end, many couldn’t seem to figure out what they were angry about. Some said the costs would be too high and that it was an unsustainable system, while almost in the same breath saying that they would be forced onto the plan because employers would leave private insurers in droves. Some said it would be a “slippery slope” that would end in the dreaded pit of “Socialism,” although no one could explain exactly what that meant.
“Nobody knows what’s in it,” George Boiko, one of the anti-reform protesters, said of the reform bills. “Our legislators tell us a bunch of stuff, we don’t know what’s true or not.”
“America was built on capitalism. Obama wants control of the car companies, control of health care, he controls the banks,” said Boiko. Others acknowledged heath care system is flawed, but they believed we could solve those problems by implementing tort reform, stronger malpractice regulations—or anything else that kept the government out.
I’ll be sure to pass on their advice to the countries of Germany, France, and Canada which are all now out of the recession, thanks to their “socialized” medical care.
Why not the USA? Because we can’t provide healthy workers to small business, which can’t afford to pay for health care.
Single payer national health care – DO IT!
Also, there is an error in the post. The sign said “Stop Advancing Socialisim.”
These birthers, anti-health-plan-chicken-littles and seriously brain-rinsed crazies should consider doing what these rabbis did. Fly over the country and pray that things just go their way – yeah, prayer works. It got me my first two-wheeler and my last trick.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/he…
How exactly are tort reform and stronger malpractice regulations not the government becoming more involved in health care than it is now?
I love how they scream about “reading the bill” but none of them have.
Even the clause Palin’s law team cited has a lot of conditions attached that essentially strip it of the onerous power she’s attributing to it. She wouldn’t know, though, because she didn’t read the bill!
To anyone who chooses to read the bill: don’t. Seriously, it is not worth hours of your free time, especially since it requires flipping back or looking up the US Code. And while most of it is not the worst of legalese, you’d better know how to look up medical insurance jargon.
If you do, I suggest a good freeware PDF viewer with higlighting and bookmarking capabilities that won’t crash like that POS Acrobat Reader. If you don’t read it, you really can take the authors at their word.
My grandmother was a cunt, she was a world class bitch. She loved to make my mother cry during Thanksgiving Dinner. I really like the idea of a bill that kills grandma, sadly though “Obamacare” falls short of that goal.
These teabirthers are the same crowd that 40 years ago were screaming the United Nations had in place a plan that would eventually lead to the overthrow of the U.S. and impose some sort of Commie-Socialist “one-world government” on the masses. I guess it would be considered bad form to point out to them that, oddly enough, no such coup d’état has ever taken place, Obama’s election notwithstanding.
And so far as I’m concerned, they have about the same amount of credibility…
It’s good these right wing morons show the country what fools they are. Remember, people, these are the whack jobs that gave us Bush, the worst president EVER!
Seattle Police and Frye Apartments devil communist you are damn liar! Catholic you are Satan Father of Liar!
One of my grandmas was a nice artist air force widow, the other one was a nice atheist Republican with a signed pic of George and Martha Bush.
Neither of them would like these Birther tin foil brigade idiots.
@9 You win the internets today.
Wait, the GOVERNMENT is gonna kill grandma? I thought it was the youth in asia!?! WTF, either way, grandma is not safe.
http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-…
Someone needs to tell Jeannette Sumpter that the fact that luck has anything to do with private insurance is the whole problem.
I honestly think those, like Jeanette Sumpter, who would rather lose their benefits than have the government pay for them should put their money where their mouth is. Sign a legal document stating such. It works for everyone if you lose your job and we get to watch you slowly die from a treatable disease simply because you’re too stubborn to admit you’re wrong. I’d buy a ticket to that show.
The sheer idiocy of half of our country’s population makes me long more and more for a zombie apocalypse.
I think that Jeanette Sumpter should loose their insurance and develop cancer. Oh, and wish her luck when she tries to declare bankruptcy. Good luck with all of that!!
Jeannette Sumpter would rather lose her bennies than have the guvmint pay for them? I would guess she hasn’t had a hospital admission recently.
Seriously, this isn’t about health care, it’s about Obama, as far as they’re concerned. If his cornerstone policy issue was eliminating subsidies for tomato farmers, these fuckwits would should show up at town hall meetings just to chuck tomatoes at their Congressman.
If the government wanted to kill Grandma, she’d already be dead.
If we could just kick all those tax leeches using socialized medicine off – you know the Medicare and Medicaid consuming Birther tin foil brigade – we could insure all the productive workers of America.
And maybe they’d move further south – to say, Mexico.
People like this are so frustrating:
A)“I would rather lose my benefits than have the government pay for them,” Sumpter said.
B)“Nobody knows what’s in it,” George Boiko, one of the anti-reform protesters, said of the reform bills. “Our legislators tell us a bunch of stuff, we don’t know what’s true or not.”
C)“America was built on capitalism. Obama wants control of the car companies, control of health care, he controls the banks,” said Boiko.
…….
a) Seriously, lady? You’d rather have NO HEALTHCARE than have the government (which you pay taxes to) help subsidize it? REALLY?! The ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ rhetoric is childish and impractical.
b) Nobody knows what’s in it? You know, a ‘public document’ means you have the ability to obtain copies of it. And if you don’t have the education or knowledge level to understand it, then I suggest finding SEVERAL sourced to determine the truths of it. Don’t make a sign and truck around making a scene simply because you don’t get it. Put that effort into actually understanding it.
c) The government’s health plan is actually ENGAGING in capitalism. The health plan does not intend to be the sole player for the nation, it only seeks to be an affordable OPTION. If, as an individual, you like your plan, then you can keep your plan. You don’t have to resort to a lessor, more minimal plan with reduced coverage. Therefore, if you’re an insurance provider and the government is able to offer lower pricing than your private entity, then you better find a more efficient way to run your business. And, by the way Boiko, Obama’s “cash for clunkers” plan has applied a defibulator to a flatlining industry, leading to the first year-over-year gain by a US automaker in almost two years.
Perhaps we should start thinking about this loosley in terms of public transit. Yeah, it can be inconvenient and uncomfortable, but it serves the masses so those things can be expected. If you can afford it, you can buy your own car. You can pick your own accessories, select your color, have it ready whenever you need it, and take it wherever you want. But if you ever lose your job, or for whatever reason need to downgrade, you can always hop on the bus. Last I checked, the $1.75 fare wasn’t making ends meet for Metro Transit. Wanna know why it’s cheap? It’s subsidized by, guess what, the local government through taxes an allocations. We may not use it everyday (or at all), but we agree that it is a worthwhile expenditure.
What’s frustrating is that the heartland of these teabagging movements, who fear increased insurance costs and reduced care under a government plan, are responsible for the increased cost and reduced care of most of our private plans right now. Take a look at some of the obesity maps for the last few decades and you can almost make a 1:1 correlation between their sugarfoot, heart disease, and general lack of nutrition and the strongest of these anti-health care riots. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt you could overlay a map of states that loved Bush and it would look the same.
We should join the protests with signs reading “Your fat ass and self-neglect is fucking with my private insurance. You’re also responsible for Arrested Development’s cancellation.”
Dismissing any government idea one doesn’t agree with as being “Socialism” is just poor rhetoric. While Hitler was a douchebag who enjoyed dog balls in his mouth, his Nazi party apparently had strict grammar and spelling requirements, hence where the term derived… Think about it, k?
This is Jeannette Sumpter speaking and I do regret making the statement that I would rather lose my benefits than have the government pay for them. It was wrong of me to say that and I realized it almost immediately. I have been blessed in many ways but I and my husband have also worked hard. Insurance coverage provided 4 back surgeries, chemo and radiation for my husband and an emergency surgery for me. Thru all of that, we were never hassled about the claims. I do not believe I am alone in this positive experience. I believe the statistics that estimate 75-80% of Americans are happy with their health care/insurance and don’t believe it makes sense to revamp the entire system in order to solve the problems being experienced by the other 25-30%. I am one of many conservatives who believes there are gaps in the system, but do not believe we should always expect the federal government to fill those gaps. There are things we can do as individuals and and at the community and state level to resolve these issues. If there were any evidence in the entire world throughout history to support the success of nationalized health care that would be a different matter. I heard the other day that England’s National Health administration is the 3rd largest employer in the WORLD! Can you imagine the bureacracy it will take to run ours!? And, you don’t have to look very far to find stories about the waiting lines in England and Canada. I would encourage you to read the ideas set forth by the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc., John Mackey, in the following article. It didn’t take him 1000 pages to outline solutions that will fill those gaps:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…
You should also read George Will’s comments where he asks: “Why does the president, who says that were America “starting from scratch” he would favor a “single-payer” — government-run — system, insist that health care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system.” He goes on to explain why Obama wants a single-payer system: “The party of government aims to make Americans more equal by making them equally dependent on government for more and more things. “
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…
@22, “Sing the theme song with me now. Sugarfoot…..Sugarfoot….asdkfk bdlskjf34 ohhhh SUGARfoot!”
Jeanette, you say “If there were any evidence in the entire world throughout history to support the success of nationalized health care…”
Have you ever heard of any of the other civilized countries in the entire world? Have you ever been to one or talked to people who live there?
Why do you suppose it is that the United States is the only industrialized country in the world that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship; and that the United States currently spends more of its GDP than any other country on health care while ranking very low in quality of health care and considerably low in satisfaction with the system?
Do you have any guesses about why the countries with nationalized (<– “that’s socialisim[sic],” you’ll say) health care are able to do such a better job using less money? (Not to mention the moral issue of providing health care to all.)
I do think it’s nice that you came here and admitted that you were wrong. However, it would be much better still if you admitted that you were approximately 100% wrong.
I understand that for routine care these countries may do well, but I have spoken to many people who have family, friends or have experienced first hand the long waiting lines in England and Canada for anything of a critical nature. I have read or viewed reports of people who have come here for the care they couldn’t get in these countries. I realize it depends on who you talk to and what you read. The fact is our Medicare program is already in deep trouble financially. The Post Office operates in the red from year-to-year. The Federal Government does not have a track record of administering any program with efficiency so I don’t know why we would want to give them more to manage.
jgs- If the government is so terrible at running programs, then it shouldn’t be hard for the insurance companies to compete with them, right? The insurance companies (and you teabaggers) want to take the ‘fighting a girl’ approach: If you win, you’ll feel bad about beating up a girl. If you lose, you’ll be made fun of because you beat up a girl.
Either the government is too formidable, or they are terrible business people. You can’t have it both ways. Grow up. This ‘girl’ could very well kick your ass… and rightfully so.
Also, you’ve missed that government health care would be an OPTION- which means you could choose to have ‘better’ health care if you can afford it. Honestly, I’m not expecting gov’t care to be spectacular… but I am betting that it’ll be better than the ZERO health care that many people are currently dealing with.
I’m not worried about private plans competing with a public option. As Obama himself has said, the Post Office is failing while UPS and Fed Ex are doing fine. I am worried about throwing money down a rat hole! I am worried about enslaving my children and grandchildren who will be paying the price for this in years to come. We can’t even pay the interest on the national debt today! It is so clear that we can’t continue to print money that is backed by nothing! Individuals who overextend themselves eventually have to file bankruptcy. This country is no different!
You stress that the government health plan would be an “option,” however, Obama has made it clear that he wants and we will achieve eventually a single payer plan. He said it may take 15 or 20 years, but that is his goal!