Obamacare supporters can go to town-hall meetings, too

[babylonsister]

Posted with permission.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/08/08/19934850-obamacare-supporters-can-go-to-town-hall-meetings-too

Obamacare supporters can go to town-hall meetings, too
By Steve Benen
-
Thu Aug 8, 2013 1:51 PM EDT
Video at link~


We've been keeping an eye out this week for congressional Republicans taking heat from the right on the Affordable Care Act, with many far-right activists pressuring GOP lawmakers to shut down the government rather than fund "Obamacare" implementation.

But let's not overlook the fact that supporters of the federal health care system are showing up at town-hall meetings, too, and they have a message lawmakers need to hear.

This clip has been making the round this morning, showing a grieving mother in North Carolina who lost her son to colon cancer. As she tells a local reporter, the woman believes her son, who struggled to get health care coverage due to a pre-existing condition, might be alive today if Obamacare had become the law sooner.

The video was recorded before the woman went into a town-hall event with Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) -- a fierce opponent of health care reform, who's voted for repeal dozens of times -- and who apparently has more than one constituent who doesn't want Republicans to roll back the clock on health care.

{Local resident Skip Edwards} and his wife, both 63, had health insurance until he lost his job during the recession and the East Asheville couple found themselves in financial trouble despite staying relatively healthy.

Both had pre-existing conditions and were denied insurance, making them eligible for a state plan called Inclusive Health. "It cost us $1,300 bucks a month -- extremely expensive," Edwards said. "It taps us out every month. But at our age and health, we've got to have it."

McHenry, 37, has repeatedly voted against the Affordable Care Act, choosing to either defund, repeal or delay it. In defending his position, he said he did agree with some aspects of the act, including ending discrimination against pre-existing conditions and extending the age a children can stay on their parents' health insurance.

Oh, is that so.

I have to admit, I always find it a little amusing when this happens. Far-right congressional Republicans vote, over and over again, to destroy the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, insisting the whole thing has to go, root and branch. But when confronted with struggling families who actually benefit from the law, suddenly the tune changes. "Sure, I voted to repeal the law and deny your family what you need," the argument usually goes, "but I kind of like some of the popular parts...."

But McHenry shouldn't play these little games and expect to be taken seriously. He actually supports protections for those with pre-existing conditions, despite having voted the other way? That's nice, I suppose, but if the law is going to protect those with pre-existing conditions, it's going to need to bring everyone else into the system to prevent soaring costs. And once you do that, you'll also need to provide subsidies to those who can't afford coverage.

And at that point, what you have is the Affordable Care Act, which McHenry has repeatedly tried to destroy.

Congressional Republicans always seem to find it easy to condemn and sabotage the law, but find it less easy when it comes to the individual provisions that remain extremely popular. McHenry hates the dreaded Obamacare, except for the protections for those with pre-existing conditions, and the policy that covers young adults, and the tax breaks for small businesses, and the prescription-drug benefits for seniors, and....

As for the bigger picture, if GOP lawmakers have to spend the August recess convincing the right they truly hate the federal health care system, while convincing the left they really don't, it should make for a fascinating recess.

[spanone]

1. k&r..

[liberal N proud]

2. I still believe that many of the loud mouths we saw in the past and are seeing now from the right...

are paid to be there.

I will put on a tinfoil hat if necessary, but it is just to much like the way the right wing thinks.

[freshwest]

4. Galreida posted a video of a meeting of people being hired to do just that. Said they needed to get

the conservative (TPP) side of the story out. That was to get them to post on blogs and show up at public meetings.

Some time back, there was a story on DU of some young unemployed men who were paid to wear tshirts to meetings saying they were against the issue at hand.

IRL, I've seen homeless people bussed in to take up space in meetings to deny the voice of those involved in hearings that had nothing to do with their own issues, but simply as place holders to stack the discussion. I don't blame them as they were promised a meal if they went along. Those who were involved were locked out and had to stand in the hall while their fate was decided.

There is only so much space in a room, and that technique was used in the Texas Lege this year to deny thousands who waited outside in line to oppose the anti-abortioin measure. The GOP had let the anti-choice people that had been bussed in to take up the space first, leaving little room for dissenting voices to go on the official record.

This is how fascists take over and are built upon, desperate people who will do or say or act for whatever they are told to pretend to be, for money, jobs, a meal. It's not new:

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

You are not delusional, but they control so much media and have enough money to make it all look grass roots, when it's really astro-turf. While we are forbidden from saying such directly about our kin at DU, we can certainly comment on the media culture that is suffocating us.

The 'corporations are people' and 'commerical speech is free speech' gang in media is betting the hundreds of millions of dollars to out talk our votes. If one dollar equals a vote, we are undone, they have more dollars than we have numbers.

If we fall for their games, keep on depressing the vote and not vote, we will be done in.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

7. There are untold thousands of bullies bent on destroying anything that helps the American people.

Ever since NAFTA and the rise of the Koch Bros, we've seen more bullies than ever. And the only people they recruit tend to be racist and completely anti-democracy. They even claim we aren't a "Democracy" but a "Republic".

I'm having such a love/hate relationship with my country today. Not a comforting feeling.

[freshwest]

9. IAT. I've got a love/hate relationship with everything. Guess that's normal, huh.

[sheshe2]

3. K&R! nt

[davidpdx]

5. In some of those places I'd recommend a bullet proof vest

No telling how many of those loons are carrying guns and are ready to you SYG to get rid of someone.

[leftstreet]

6. I'll wait for the chainedCPI town halls

Why are there town halls to debate the merits of forcing Americans to buy insurance from for-profit companies, but there are never town halls for:

bank bailouts
war spending
school privatizing
food and energy assistance cuts
medicare cuts
nsa spying
affordable housing
jobs

[Cali_Democrat]

8. Do you think we're better off with what we had before the ACA?