I attended the just-completed health care town hall meeting at Greenwich Town Hall attended by roughly 300 people. To summarize Congressman Himes did a very admirable job of explaining the problems with our health care system, explaining what health care reform is necessary, what Congress is debating, and what he intends to vote for. I'd estimate that about 40% of the people in the meeting room tonight were anti-health care reform. They started out interrupting, throwing out catcalls, and being rather disruptive. But Congressman Himes answered questions thoroughly, he used data, he explained his positions clearly, and by eight o'clock at the end of the hour and a half session, all participants were much more subdued, and it appeared that many of the anti folks in the audience had their fears calmed. Of course, you never know with these tin hat types, but the mood in the room certainly became more calmed as the meeting went on and I will have to credit Jim Himes for soothing the fears of many in attendance.
Himes made the following points:
In his introduction he pointed out that the average American family now pays nearly $15,000 either directly or indirectly for health care coverage, and in ten years it is estimated to rise to #30,000.
He stated that we cannot reform Medicare or get our fiscal balance under control without reforming our nation's health care system.
He stated that reforming our health care system and giving every child the opportunity to see a doctor is a matter of morality.
Disturbingly, however, Congressman Himes repeatedly referred to Medicare having $30 tn in unfunded liabilities in terms of the present value of promised care over the next 75 years. He also stated repeatedly that reforming Medicare will be difficult, involve difficult choices, and demand that services to Medicare beneficiaries be reduced in the future.
Outside the hall, however, it was a different story. According to Greenwich Post reporter Ken Borsuk with whom I talked as I was leaving the hall, at least a hundred people who couldn't gain entrance debated each other bitterly outside the main entrance to Town Hall. I went to the front door and witnessed the group of angry tin hatters yelling out front. After the formal meeting broke up, Congressman Himes came out to talk with the ignorant crazies who were still there, about 70 people by my reckoning. Unlike the anti's who had listened to all of Himes' answers in the hall, these were unreconstructed morons who hooted at him, yelled at him, made references to a socialistic takeover of health care, accused him and Obama of holding on to most of the stimulus money so that they could use it for their reelection campaigns. Greenwich Democrat and former BET member Ed Krumeich tried to help out Himes by bellowing in his marvelous, legally-trained stentorian voice to demand that the nutjobs let Himes answer the questions put to him and to keep quiet while the congressman was trying to answer them.
The best comment I heard was from one of the crazies standing at the back of the crowd making snotty comments. As I was about to leave, she said, "They're talking down to us; they think we're stupid." Yes, lady, you are stupid, incredibly stupid. Got that right.
Indeed, mingling with the tin hat crowd who apparently had arrived en masse too late to get in, it was apparent that they were ignorant and scared. The world is just too difficult for them to understand, but it is treating them wrong, they've grabbed the short end of the stick, and they don't know what to do. They are grasping for understanding through conspiracy theories that dovetail with their natural racism: each one of the crazies mixed in "ACORN" in their list of enemies. In a way I feel sorry for them, but I am also very afraid of the pathologies that motivate them. It only takes one of these nutjobs, egged on by his fellow nutjobs, to do horrible things.
But kudos to Congressman Himes. He entered the lions' den, he dealt calmly and logically with a group of agitated and illogical people, and with each answer to each paranoid questioner, made headway.
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