Yesterday, August 12th, I had the opportunity to listen to US Senator Saxby Chambliss speak about health care reform. Senator Chambliss held true to the Republicans' game plan on debating health care reform - dispense inaccurate information, allow no public debate, answer pre-selected questions, and blame the uninsured person. The event was sponsored by the Boeing Company for the Macon Chamber of Commerce members. (On a side note: I wonder if Saxby would speak at an event sponsored by the AFL-CIO for the Young Democrats of Georgia's members...I'm just saying.)
The program opened with two representatives from Macon's hospital network, Coliseum Hospital and the Medical Center of Central Georgia, speaking about what should be included in the final health care reform bill. What was important to each of them seemed to be a reflection on the environment at their respective medical institutions. The gentleman from Coliseum Hospital, the more community oriented medical facility, hopes the final bill supports expanded coverage, is not a single payer plan, does not leave a burden on the economy for future generations, and continually provides high quality health care. The gentleman from the Medical Center, the 13th oldest medical school in the nation, does not want a rush of the process, wants a blue ribbon commission to study the reform policies before a bill is passed, includes reforming malpractice policies, and holds true to keeping the principles of individual personal accountability.
Saxby opened his talk by admitting that he doesn't know much about health care and in fact he gets all his information from health care suppliers (i.e. health care lobbyists and the firms who have donated millions to his election campaigns). He didn't say he received his talking points from the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the CDC, the US Senate health committees - nope, his healthcare knowledgebase comes from the very companies that don't want health care reform. He later confessed that he hasn't read the current House bill, but amazingly he knew the exact cost of new taxes that are included in the bill.
Saxby then presented his first of four charts to the audience - debunking the 47 million uninsured figure that is stated by the Obama administration. Saxby reduced the 47 million uninsured count to basically 12-15 million people who really have no options for health insurance. According to Saxby, we should only really worry about providing health insurance to these 12-15 million people.
Because:
- Saxby says 6 million of the reported uninsured are "illegal aliens" (his words not mine). Saxby doesn't believe American tax money should go to these people to have health insurance. Yup, let's just keep piling on to the very weak US emergency health care system.
- Saxby claims 14 million people are eligible for other government health programs but have not applied. Although Saxby acknowledges that some folks have a hard time applying, he hasn't really helped their situations with his Senate votes. Now let's understand that this is the same Senator who voted "no" on the SCHIP bill because the bill was going to cover uninsured adults, the same senator who voted against Disaster Relief Medicaid for Hurricane Katrina victims, and who voted "no" on expanding enrollment period for Medicare Part D.
- Saxby claims another 15 million people can afford health insurance but choose not to pay for it. In Saxby's eyes, Americans shouldn't really worry about these folks either because the folks "choose" not to get health insurance. Maybe these are the same folks who are working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet and need that extra $100-$200 to pay their rent or buy food for their kids. Also, if they are not choosing to pay for health insurance then they are getting their health care via this country's rapidly depleting emergency health care system. But why worry about making sure they have an affordable health insurance plan because they are doing just great without any health insurance.
Saxby followed up his debunking theories by offering up some good old fashioned pandering. The worst part about politicians is their pandering to specific groups. The best part is capturing it on video!
According to Saxby, we should use our current tax code and tax credits to provide health care insurance for all Americans regardless of income. Whoa Nellie, isn't this the same Senator who sponsored the Fair Tax Acts of 2007 and 2009? The Fair Tax Act which is "a bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes...". I'm confused at how Saxby is going to offer health care tax incentive benefits to folks using our current tax system when he wants to repeal the current tax system and the IRS. So Saxby are ya with your Fair Tax contributors or are you against them?
Saxby then goes on to vent how he will never vote on a healthcare bill unless it maintains that healthcare decisions are made between a doctor and their patient and not include the government. This is a total fear tactic since I have never heard any health care reform talk discuss stripping this basic principle away from patients. I think Republicans are forgetting that healthcare decisions are currently being mitigated by people who don't have medical degrees - health care insurance adjusters who can arbitrarily deny patients their rights to choose to a specific doctor, hospital, and medicine without any standardized guidelines. Saxby's strong stance would lead one to believe that he also supports the efforts of Planned Parenthood of Georgia since they provide licensed doctors and medical services to patients. Consequently one can also venture that Saxby is also for a woman's right to choose - he has to be - since a woman's decision for an abortion is a medical decision and performed by a license doctor.
I would like to know why the media and general public are not holding our Republican representatives accountable as they are our Democratic representatives. The senior US Senator from Georgia is allowed to speak to a closed and private audience about his views on health care reform without any public outcry while our State is handicapped with only four Level 1 Trauma centers. The threat of Level 1 Trauma centers closing is real if health care costs continue to rise and the number of uninsured increases. Yet Saxby Chambliss can speak about health care reform to the Macon Chamber of Commerce at a "members only event". Members of the Macon Chamber of Commerce are not the ones that will be most affected if Macon's only Level 1 Trauma Center closes.
In addition, Republican Congressmen Deal, Linder, and Westmoreland are all having "Tele-Town Halls" which in itself limits the conversation to a segregated audience. In order to participate on these "Tele-Town Halls" conference calls one first needs internet access and an email address to receive notification of the time, date, and phone numbers for the conference calls. This will limit many elderly people, low income households, the working poor, and not technically savvy constituents. Where is the "debate" when our Republican representatives are allowed to dispense misinformation to a pre-selected audience?
My next post will detail how Saxby portrayed data from an insurance backed group as information from an independent and nonpartisan health care think tank.
Comments (2)
Thanks for the report Bernita, Much the same talking points were heard from Cong. Dr. Phil Gingrey (R, Marietta) last night in Rome, Ga.
He had a 'fun vid' cued up in his computer, but happily Mr. Bill's curse would not allow him to run it. As most of the over flow crowd of some 400(?) or more could not hear or see it anyway. But their big point was largely the same. It's 'only' about 15-20 Mill 'uninsured' when 'you look into & disaggregated the numbers, many of them illegals or people who should be getting medical care 'else where'. No mention of course of the 50 Mill then Under insured either (See again Http://www.familiesusa.org for the details).
But on the whole it was a much 'softer' presentation from Phil. Sure, he lied by omission by never answering the repeated claims by questioners of 'death panels', (which he surely knows about), and in general was pleased to tell the mostly senior audience, (hey it was @ 3PM in the afternoon), that Yes, their Medicare was at stake. He came back to that point repeatedly, 'they're going to cut 10% of your already inadequate Medicare payments' & 'Then they'll raise taxes to pay for all of this'.
But on the whole, he was evidently the rare Ga. Repug who actually took the Frank Luntz memo seriously, and did talk about needed 'insurance reforms'. He did take open questions from the floor, which did include some from people clearly favoring the bill. But the misinformation and lies only came down a bit slicker. Always it was, 'this is not as serious a problem as they suggest' and 'this will detrimentally affect your medicare', and repeatedly 'this stuff about Govmint mandates frankly scares me'. Several times I noted in my notes he said, 'This frightens me' about one issue or another about the bill.
So also seemingly he was better prepped by the Health Insurance lobby on the finer points of bamboolzement. And it showed. The crowd was mostly polite if sweltering in the 95 Deg heat, and we had an Oxtard out front handing out the 'Stop ObamaCare' cards for his slick & trick campaign website. Probably about 4-5 cops there present, but mostly up front.
I've never seen Jackson Hill crowded with that many cars either. They were clearly well over capacity @ the Civic Center, but no one was turned away. It was fully staffed too, and the his big guys had to lug out the 200lbs some odd of worthless computers & projectors & such to their waiting hulking SUV's. Well worth the wait to see that. But I'm wondering if it was a House GOP Caucus produced vid, it looked pretty slick too, from what little of it was seen. Several references back to 'Hillary care' as a starting point, and guilt by association there. (Look how foolish this has all been!) Phil has another Town Hall scheduled for Cartersville's Zena Drive Senior Center on the 25 Aug. (same time, 3PM start). That's an even smaller venue too. But we maybe get A/C this time.
Thanks again for the excellent report here Bernita. JMP
Whenever Republicans misrepresent the status quo - as here, where Saxby pretends that medical decisions are made by the patient and their doctor, or with EFCA, where they pretend to support workplace democracy - I wonder why Democrats don't call their bluff.
Like, "Oh, you don't think that insurance companies should insert themselves into the patient-doctor relationship? Well, let's forbid that." Or, "Oh, you think that workers deserve a secret ballot vote? Okay, let's hold one every four years."