“How dare you? How dare you criticize those dear sweet insurance companies who’ve been shafting us royally?” say the teabaggers. “How dare you utter a syllable against them for quintupling their profits over a seven year period?”
Claire pointed out that the ten largest health care insurers made a profit of $2.4 billion in 2000 and $12.9 billion in 2007. Oh man, those stats made the wingers’ blood boil. Not against the greedy bloodsuckers driving some of us to bankruptcy and the rest of us to shopping Target instead of Macys. No,no. They screamed at Claire. A man near me yelled, “Why do you get to decide what’s a fair profit margin?”
And when she said the average health insurance company CEO makes $10 million a year, they knew, knew that she was out to destroy their way of life. Not so, said Claire. “I’m not against capitalism.” That brought the roof down.
Claire stopped and looked at them for several seconds before saying, “I’m so disappointed.”
Take a look at how much sympathy that garnered her:
A warm crowd? Not so much.
Keep in mind,though, that the noise came only from the baggers. Not only did I fail to capture a single progressive–and there were many in the audience–screaming at the wingers or screaming at Claire for backing away from the public option, I also failed to capture any of the undecided-on-the-issue voters kicking up a fuss. They weren’t hollering their frustration with trying to make sense of this ungodly complicated, still evolving legislation that could make the difference for them someday between bankruptcy and still owning a home after they’ve had cancer treatment. So, no, I did not film the undecideds venting in any way, but they were there. I walked around for fifteen minutes before the event asking people about their views. Although I later learned that the the other side of the gym was almost solid with the angries, still I found plenty of them on my side. And about the same number of pro-reform people. But what I found most was “I’m just here to get information. I don’t know what I think yet.”
They weren’t making any ruckus, and they probably got plenty of useful info. If they could hear Claire above the din.
I happened to be looking in that guy’s direction when he yelled that. He looked like he was about ready to blow a gasket.
The average teabagger/right wingnut/Glenn Beck cable television watcher blood pressure must have been up at least fifty points for those of that ilk in attendance at this event. Just freakin’ amazing.
The focus is now more on the fracas and not on health care reform. And that is of course the goal of those shouters and disrupters. The louder and more irrational the mobs are, the more attention they get and that means less for the issue at hand.
Maybe we should think about boycotting these town halls and find another way to ask questions and make our wishes known.
Insurance companies have been running without accountability for far too long and it would be nice to see a plan that gives us a public option, but also regulates the private companies as well. We are too far down the list in health care at this point in history, with all of our money and technology, why don’t we use it for our own people and the future generations of America. I read an article written by a panel of medical professionals and throughout the article there is a statistic by the World Health Organization that puts as #37 in health care.
http://www.ourblook.com/compon…
We need to create a system that really focuses on prevention. Help this country get back on track, eat better, live better, and with a plan that would allow more freedom, people may no longer have need to be bound by jobs they dislike simply to guarantee they have health coverage.
It is so disheartening that there is such a large population of middle and lower class Americans who would benefit so greatly from a social health care system and yet they buy into all of the lies that their providers feed them, despite being taken advantage of time and again.