Monday evening I attended the town hall session put on by Congressman Norm Dicks in Bremerton, WA. There certainly was a variety of voices on both sides of the health care debate. The following are thoughts that I had while listening to the debate.
Mr. Dicks liked to harp on the idea of medicare reimbursement rates, which he said in Washington is lower than the national average. Pointing to McCallum, TX as his example.
Quite a lot of people didn’t like the “Republican values” staements that people would state or ask.
He liked to have it both ways by stating that he was against the funding of abortions, but followed it on the heals by the statement that he has always been “100% pro-choice in his career”.
He often looked frustrated, but didn’t waver. When asked how many people that get treated at ER’s are actually U.S. Citizens, he stated that he felt it was “95%” and then followed it up by stating that it is illegal in this country to receive health care service.
When he was asked by a veteran about how he would insure that other citizens would not have to wait six months to receive treatment for pain like he did with the VA, he didn’t really answer the question, but stated that he was glad that he got good care from the VA. This seemed typical of several of his responses to people’s statements or questions. Often he would follow up with his own statement that seemed to spin the person’s words to support his own stance instead of being opposed to it.
When asked about requirement for insurance when currently we are forced to purchase auto insurance yet still have to pay for “no fault insurance coverage”. His answer was that people…. [sorry, don’t remember what I was thinking].
When challenged about the 47 million uninsured individuals how many were actual citizens, his answer was that there was 1% and no more than 5%. Later he read something from the CBO estimating this to be 8-9%.
One woman challenged him on why congress does not take the plan themselves. However, he did not answer.
When challenged by a woman that was struggling to pay bills, he stated that this was the reason that during his career he has supported the single payer system.
One woman challenged Mr. Dicks on the focus on health insurance and vouchers so that insurance wouldn’t be tied to employment.
One woman pointed out the Inadequacy of Group Health that was being used as an example of health care reform. He followed this up with his statement, “another powerful statement for national health care.”
When asked about tort reform and Mr. Dean’s answer he stated very forcefully that he has always oppossed because if someone loses the wrong limb or breast that they should not be limited by the amount of money that can recover.
When asked about how would it be possible to save half a trillion dollars as he said, Dicks stated that was over 10 years and this would happen from Medicare fixes. Not many in the crowd believed this statement.
When asked about his stance on illegal immigration, he talked about going down to Southwestern USA and stated that he was for the fence and felt that the US prosecutor needs to be prosecuting illegals. Stated that we have to get Mexico to help us with this problem.
He slyly blew off a man’s statement about when the government stops working for the people they become the oppressors and how would he insure when the government won’t decide who lives and dies.
A woman asked why are we dismantling the best health care system in the world?
When asked about a balanced budget, Dicks said that’s not the way to do so in hard times, but wait for the economy to return and revenues to come in.
Asked about not increasing taxes during hard times, he stated that he was for cutting taxes for 95% of the citizens. When the people in the room groaned, he responded with something about “how many of you are in the top 5%?”
He supported a energy policy.
He gave a very safe political response to the military abroad.
A woman stated that she would rather pay everything, including her house to have good health care than to get free health care and die waiting for care.
He stated that the current bills were written by the staff of the congressional members.
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Link with photos and full video at Kitsap Sun website: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/aug/31/us-rep-norm-dicks-faces-skeptical-crown-at-town/
Link to article from the Port Orchard Independent: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/poi/news/56550857.html