Illinois Representative Phil Hare held a town hall meeting on the proposed national health care reform legislation in Decatur on August 19, 2009. The meeting was held at the Community Health Improvement Center (CHIC). About 25-30 people attended the meeting. Former Decatur city councilman Dan Caulkins was there and asked some questions. Current councilman Larry Foster was in the hallway after the meeting and spoke briefly to Rep. Hare. Foster has recently been vocal about his displeasure of not being invited to Senator Durbin’s recent stealth-like meeting at Decatur Memorial Hospital. Durbin has been criticized by many for not holding public town hall meetings on the proposed health care legislation; instead Durbin has resorted to small, private meetings with select officials to avoid the heated meetings many congressional leaders are finding themselves enduring when going back home to face their constituents.
The meeting lasted about an hour and was very respectful and constructive in tone. A handful of individuals shared their own personal stories. One woman, who had previously been a health care worker herself, but is no longer able to work due to her own health care issues, spoke of her inability to obtain health coverage through Illinois’ FamilyCare program because she didn’t meet the requirements. Only women with children under the age of 18 qualify for Illinois’ FamilyCare plan. She made an impassioned plea for change in the health care system. She had cancer has a young child, which has led to chronic health issues, therefore no private insurer will cover her. (Watch video) She represents many Americans who are left with no health care options due to pre-existing conditions and exorbitant health care costs.
A couple individuals expressed their concerns about abortion being funded by the legislation. Rep. Hare assured them that coverage for abortion is not included in the bill. Caulkins expressed his concerns as a business owner of the costs and other concerns that he had.
Videos the videos of the meeting on the Decatur Navigator YouTube Channel. They are in eight parts.
Thanks Kris. I watched it very interesting meeting. You may want to listen to Byers 8:00 hour interview with Phil as wellit was pretty good – Ken Smithmier was there in the discussion too so that made it better
I think the meeting went well. I was just listening to Byers’ show this morning and a lady who was at the meeting called in and wasn’t too impressed with the meeting at all. I think there were more Republicans there than Democrats and I could tell some of them wanted to rip into Hare more than they did. There was a guy wearing a Reagan hat sitting next to the lady who asked about abortion coverage in the bill. But it remained respectful. Maybe some people wanted more of a ruckus but I preferred yesterday’s format.
I walked away from the meeting with a positive feeling. A lot of the questions I had were answered and I think Hare seemed sincere. He said he’s read all 1,000+ pages of the bill and admitted that congress should have put out a fact sheet to make it plain in simple what the bill was about. I shook Hare’s hand and thanked him for coming to Decatur and told him it was a good meeting. He also was amazed at how well my son behaved. I didn’t know how he was going to be but a lady from CHIC brought him a coloring book and Crayons – you can see that in one of the videos. Thank goodness for coloring books!
There were several people in the hallway, outside the room listening because there wasn’t enough room for everybody at the table, so I’m not sure how long Foster was there but he did catch Hare before he was about to leave the building and tried to get his two cents in before Hare left.
I was moved by the lady who spoke in the last video. I don’t know if it shows that well on the video but I could hear the desperation in her voice. You’d have to have a heart of stone, or no heart at all, to not realize we’ve got to do something to get people like her access to health coverage.
Well you may want to listen to his podcast from Wed 8:00 hour to hear the discussion with Ken Smithmier – much that Phil said was the same in both but it was interesting to hear a hospital administrator suggest we may need the public option for competition…..
too get anything done on health care we will need some strong support for SOMETHING from the center because as you can see we lose support from the left when we drop the public option…
without the public option Obama loses the far left who generally want single payer system which was never even put on the table.
From Rassmussen polls this am:
“Without the public option, just 50% of Democrats support the legislation. That’s down from 69% support measured a week ago. But here the enthusiasm gap is especially strong. A week ago, polling found that 44% of Democrats Strongly favored the reform plan. Without the public option, just 12% of Democrats Strongly support it.”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/august_2009/without_public_option_enthusiasm_for_health_care_reform_especially_among_democrats_collapses
Left wing radio is beating Obama up for not being strong enough regarding the public option….
What I want to know is just where is the support from the center for doing something to fix the current state of our healtcare system. You know independant and blue dogs are who actually put Obama in and gave the democratic party a majority. Democrats won in states we never win in BUT the health care debate has disgressed to ONLY the screams of those on the left and the right. If we want a center of road country those folks need to be speaking up….
Well, I kind of consider myself center and I support reform. The two extremes from both parties usually kill every change, even good ones.
I also don’t think the center has a voice in this country, except at the ballot box, which is what counts in the end. Our media sources are so one extreme or the other – there’s not a middle of the road cable news station, so it’s hard to feel the pulse of the nation, until we vote, that is.
It doesn’t count in the end at the ballot box if you can’t pass anything once you are in because you have to get agreement on something to get it through. Obama has talked til he is blue in the face with the Republicans and Blue dogs and they are caving to the yellers and digging a line in sand regarding no public option. And the left is drawing a line in the sand regarding the public option as well only on the other side… so due to obnoxiousness on both sides we will get NOTHING!!!
Isn’t that the truth! If they could just make it illegal for insurance companies to deny people with pre-existing conditions and place caps on what insurance companies can charge people, that would be two HUGE steps.
Single-payer isn’t on the table, like you said. People are so misinformed it’s ridiculous but like Hare said, Congress should have been much more clear and so should have Obama. There’s so many “plans” flying around out there and baloney from talk radio, nobody knows what to think anymore. It’s stupid. Now I know why the Clinton’s couldn’t accomplish health care reform in the 90′s either.
And I’m not against a public option either. Some people would never be able to afford any kind of private insurance, so there needs to be something for those too young for Medicare and too wealthy (hardy har har) for Medicaid. There’s a lot of working people without insurance – more and more every day.
I sure don’t know the answer – one of the main reasons I’ve liked Obama was his pragmatism and goal of reaching a concensus to make what “we do agree on” happen. Like you with or with out a public option even some insurance reform would be a big plus. I wish I knew how to change things so people would quit the game playing