The fight over altering the nation’s health care system made a stop yesterday in Jefferson City.
Federal legislators have been wrestling with legislation that would make big changes to the way health care works in this country. The most talk about plan includes setting up a government-run program that would provide health insurance to potentially millions of Americans.
Over the past few months, meetings discussing federal health care legislation have become rowdy and – at times – violent. Several people were arrested earlier at a forum sponsored by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis.
But the controversy over the issue hasn’t stopped Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, from staging “town halls” at various stops around Missouri. She discussed health care to a packed audience yesterday at a school cafeteria in Jefferson City.
As you can see from this video, individuals against Democratic health care proposals were in full force at the meeting. McCaskill was occasionally interrupted by some angry crowd members. And particularly heated questions were at times hard to hear.
Afterward, McCaskill was asked whether she had encountered the most impolite crowd of her tour. McCaskill said “it was close.”
“There were clearly a lot of people here that were more interested in disrupting and showing their anger than listening or having any sort of discourse,” McCaskill said. “But that’s OK. We have this great, big, giant First Amendment in this country.”
My article for the Columbia Business Times touched on concerns from some interest groups about the federal health care legislation. There’s some worry, for instance, about whether there will be enough medical professionals to treat potentially millions of people empowered by the “public option.”
I asked McCaskill about that issue. You can watch her response here.
Tags: claire mccaskill, health care, jefferson city, missouriCategories: Politics, State Politics.
Our seniors are being manipulated with suggestions of back alley clinics, long lines, delays and death panels to the point of cruelty! References to a government run health care plan contribute to the current confusion and ignorance about proposals for health care reform. Would you describe Medicare as government run health care? Doctors submit bills to Medicare for payment; they’re not employees of the state like the British system. Here, recipients are pretty satisfied and often unaware that the government is involved. Despite chronic problems with fraud and abuse, it’s so efficient that only 3% of its budget is spent on overhead!
Concerns about shortages of primary care doctors are unrealistic. Reforms won’t go into effect until 2013 and targeted for completion by 2015. There’ll be plenty of time to recruit health care professionals. Some specialists will probably switch to family practice for freedom from the stresses of the present system
Medicare is indeed a government run health care plan paid for by tax dollars. The plan currently has in excess of $39 trillion of unfunded liabilities. In other words, the government run health plan is broke. The goverment run retirement plan is broke as well. I believe the unfunded liabilities there are close to $20 trillion. So, what the heck, let’s have the government run the entire health care system, it’s only money!