Posted on 08/05/2009 11:33:02 AM PDT by kaehurowing
Vocal crowd turns out for health care forum
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
By NATALIE HOFFMAN Register Staff Writer
A packed Napa church hosted a boisterous meeting Monday night regarding health care reform. The meeting drew some 500 people to listen to — and occasionally shout at — a panel of speakers that included Rep. Mike Thompson, D- St. Helena.
The audience at First United Methodist Church demonstrated varying policy viewpoints. Some asked mild questions, others pointed ones, and still others burst into verbal attacks at panel members. Shouts of “This is America!” and “What’s wrong with profit?” emerged from a seated crowd in response to statements Napa County Health and Human Services Director Randy Snowden — a member of the panel — made about the overall rise in health care costs since the industry abandoned its nonprofit roots about 30 years ago.
“Right now, we don’t have a healthy, sustainable health care (program) in Napa County,” Snowden said. A shout out of “What are the illegals costing us?” prompted little response from panel members, who answered pre-selected questions about how health care reform legislation would work and be paid for. Moderators, meanwhile, attempted to quiet some members of the crowd.
At the discussion’s center was H.R. 3200 — a measure largely supported by House Democrats and known as America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The bill’s proponents, including Thompson, say the legislation would provide most Americans with affordable health care coverage. Its opponents say it’s expensive and would unfairly draw upon higher taxes for the wealthy. Thompson said that between 2000 and 2007, the average health-care premium has increased by 97 percent, several times more than Californians’ average wage increases.
“The model of health care that we have today is not sustainable. ... Right now, one of every six dollars we earn in this country, we spend on health care,” he said, adding that employees and employers are more burdened than ever with skyrocketing healthcare costs.
Panelist Cathy Hoffman of the Napa County Children’s Health Initiative said affordability is the biggest question out there regarding health care coverage.
About 40 percent of Napa County families of four live on incomes less than $66,000 annually, and many of these people are without health insurance, Hoffman said. The uninsured, she said, are three to four times more likely to delay health care until they are very ill, passing costs on to other people instead of receiving preventative care that could prevent serious illness.
Beatrice Bostick, executive director of Clinic Ole — a nonprofit that provides health care to Medicare and Medi-Cal patients and the uninsured — said there has been a recent “tremendous surge” in the number of middle class, uninsured people coming to the clinic for care.
During 2007, she said, 18,000 uninsured patients came to the clinic for care in a year’s time. But that number has jumped to 24,000 people in the past 12 months.
“It’s not a matter of if our health care system is going to melt down,” she said. “It’s a matter of when.”
Thompson said H.R. 3200 would be paid for by about $500 billion saved by going after waste and fraud in the Medicare system, in addition to “changes in the (health care) delivery system” and other efficiencies. The remaining $500 billion would be generated by a surcharge against the income of the nation’s wealthiest 1.2 percent of residents, he said.
Thompson said the nation’s smallest businesses — those with nine or fewer employees and a payroll of less than $250,000 — would be exempt from having to pay for health coverage for workers.
More health care talk
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, is hosting a live town hall telephone meeting today from 7 to 8 p.m. about health care reform. People may call toll free (877) 229-8493 and enter the passcode 13293 to participate.
The Community Health Care Outreach and Reform Project, which sponsored Monday’s forum, hosts a follow-up meeting Sunday from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 625 Randolph St., Napa. Info, 320-3140.
Good question.
Love how that headline makes it sound like the crowd LOVED Obamacare.
Note: The above post is made as a courtesy to all of our troll spies who wish they had the balls to post their version of the "truth" on this site....
Seems odd that there aren’t any pro-Obamacare people at these meetings.
That’s got to be making them crazy in DC.
When? As soon as that bill passes. That's when!
So these cowards would only answer "pre-selected questions"? Why do voters put up with this?
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) at a Health Care for America Now rally: “And next to me was a guy from the insurance company who argued against the public health insurance option, saying it wouldn't let private insurance compete. That a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer. My single-payer friends, he was right. The man was right.”
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told Single Payer Action: “I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single-payer and that is the best way to reach single-payer. Saying you'll do nothing till you get single-payer is a sure way never to get it. … I think the best way we're going to get single-payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate the strength of its power.”
Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein at the Democratic National Convention last year: “They have a sneaky strategy, the point of which is to put in place something that over time the natural incentives within its own market will move it to single-payer.”
Noble Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: “[T]he only reason not to do [single-payer] is that politically it's hard to do in one step…You'd have to convince people completely give up the insurance they have, whereas something that lets people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan, that may evolve into single-payer.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) at a Health Care for America Now rally: “And next to me was a guy from the insurance company who argued against the public health insurance option, saying it wouldn't let private insurance compete. That a public option will put the private insurance industry out of business and lead to single-payer. My single-payer friends, he was right. The man was right.”
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told Single Payer Action: “I think that if we get a good public option it could lead to single-payer and that is the best way to reach single-payer. Saying you'll do nothing till you get single-payer is a sure way never to get it. … I think the best way we're going to get single-payer, the only way, is to have a public option and demonstrate the strength of its power.”
Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein at the Democratic National Convention last year: “They have a sneaky strategy, the point of which is to put in place something that over time the natural incentives within its own market will move it to single-payer.”
Noble Prize winning New York Times columnist Paul Krugman: “[T]he only reason not to do [single-payer] is that politically it's hard to do in one step…You'd have to convince people completely give up the insurance they have, whereas something that lets people keep the insurance they have but then offers the option of a public plan, that may evolve into single-payer.
Good Grief...some of the comments on that site are incredible. I didn’t know that NAPA VALLEY residents were THAT STUPID.
They were all brought there and paid, by the health insurance organizations/sarc
Napa has loads of libs like Santa Rosa was a mega hippie lib area in the past. On the flip side their are also wineriens and some capitalists.
I wonder if those old libs, aging hippies and baby boomers in Nor Cal are excited about becoming Soylent Green.
Baby Boomers will be hitting the death counseling age sooner than they think.
Call, call, fax and go to TownHall meetings.
What are frivolous and inflated lawsuits costing us?
“What are the illegals costing us?”See? We're not ''government' and even we can come up with better ways to heal health care without socializing it!What are frivolous and inflated lawsuits costing us?
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