Here is video for health care policy wonks. Professor Sidney Watson testified on Nov. 10th at a state senate hearing in St. Louis on whether Missouri should create a health care exchange. Watson is a lawyer and a researcher at St. Louis University on health care issues. Testimony was limited to three minutes a person; but after her time was up, Watson continued fielding questions from Senators Brad Lager, Jane Cunningham and Rob Schaaf for another fifteen minutes.
Your humble videographer screwed up and didn’t put a fresh memory chip in before Watson began speaking, so a couple of minutes of her prepared testimony are missing while I took care of that oversight.
Last Thursday at the St. Louis state senate hearing on whether to create a health care exchange in Missouri, Dave Smith, a lobbyist for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, tried to be neutral. Since he was there to debunk certain ‘myths’ about exchanges and since all of the myths were ideas propounded by Republicans, the “neutral” stance was more of a polite fiction than a reality. It was almost by way of apology to his Republican brethren on the panel. He himself is a Republican and Lord knows Anthem isn’t owned by Democrats. But after all, the idea of health care exchanges isn’t a liberal idea. It was first proposed a number of years ago by the Heritage Foundation. Professor Sidney Watkins made that point in the video I posted last week (at 8:13 in the video).
Although Smith wasn’t willing to say so explicitly, his remarks led to the conclusion that the exchange would be sound public policy for officials in either party.
We can always hope that the Republican senators will take that point of view into account and ignore the unsubstantiated claims of the Ed Martins (again, see last week’s film, not only to hear his dubious generalizations but also to hear them debunked.)
On Thursday, state senators held a hearing in St. Louis on whether accepting federal money to create a Missouri health exchange was advisable. At this hearing, unlike the two in Springfield and Kansas City, those in favor of the ACA and health exchanges were allowed to speak. And they did. Advocates of an exchange packed the room, and of the 37 people who testified, 30 favored the creation of a Missouri health exchange.
Mary Clemons of Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice summed up their sentiments nicely. She allowed as how the senators had had to listen to quite a few health care horror stories, but she said the speakers weren’t looking for sympathy and a pat on the back. They were looking for our legislators to do something about the problems.
Scott Rupp (R-Wentzville) chaired the hearing–graciously. Brad Lager (R-Savannah) and Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) attended. Joe Keaveny was the lone Democratic senator in attendance. Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis) was there, even though he’s not on the committee. Rob Schaaf (R-Buchanan and Platte Counties) and Luann Ridgeway (R-Smithville) participated via a phone link.
Advocates packed the room and dominated the mike. But Obamacare haters also had their say. The video juxtaposes the two sides, with each person who criticizes an exchange followed by someone who answers his objections. I tried, honest, to give you the flavor of the comments from both sides in three minutes or less of video. Couldn’t be done. So watch as little or as much of it as you want. Ed Martin dominates the negative comments at the beginning for the sake of those who aren’t going to watch it all but who want to see that side’s celeb in action.
There are two more videos to come: footage of the Anthem representative speaking in favor of creating an exchange and, for the wonkish among you, the rather lengthy exchanges between the senators and St. Louis University health care researcher, Sidney Watson.
