Senator Claire McCaskill (D) held another town hall (in a long series of health care reform town halls) at 8:00 a.m. today at the the Johnson County fair grounds a few miles west of Warrensburg. Approximately two hundred fifty to three hundred people attended the one hour long event. The building had been set up to seat five hundred. Those in favor of health care reform appeared to be in the majority, though there were a handful of teabaggers at the back of the audience who shouted on occasion. Other than those individuals the vast majority of people at the event were polite and listened to the questions and responses.
Senator McCaskill listening to a question.
A Kansas City television station had a reporter doing stand ups and short interviews before the doors opened.
Each chair in the hall had a question form.
There were a small number of teabaggers in attendance.
It was an early morning for a few in attendance.
Representative Denny Hoskins (r – noun, verb, CPA) (center, in red) working on the question he submitted.
Senator McCaskill at the press conference after the town hall.
Johnson County had one of the largest percentage of votes for Perot in the country, at least 15% in 1996.
I had to leave at 8:30 to go to work.
While I was still there, McCaskill asked how many people think we don’t need to change the health care system. About 5% of the hands went up.
Mike may have a better sense of the crowd than I did.
I was able to get some applause starting for statements that supported important changes in health care coverage, and I thought, that applause was noticeably louder than applause for wacko comments that we are a capitalist country and should be free to choose our health care.
I wanted to shout out (but didn’t) I don’t want to be free not be able to get health care and die.
Thanks Bob, if you were the one who started the applause when Sen. McCaskill mentioned that some people were impolite at these meetings.
I was most impressed with her forceful question, “Where was your outrage when Medicare Part D was passed?”
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