What happened at my town hall

This week I attended a town hall meeting in Florence, Alabama hosted by my “Democratic” Congressman Doctor Parker Griffith (D? –AL). I think someone handed him the wrong talking points because for a minute I thought I might have stumbled into a town hall hosted by Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ). It was all there. He promised he would support no public plan. He went on to tell us tort reform and insurance across state lines would fix our healthcare ails. In a nutshell, he told us 85 percent of us were happy with our healthcare and it was a matter of tweaking the system. He said all this after beginning the conversation so beautifully. He began by telling us about a woman he had treated for cancer too late.

As he relayed the all too common story woman with a master’s degree who had lost her job and health insurance, I thought about the good a choice north Alabama had made by electing a doctor to Congress in the midst of a healthcare debate. He told us how she waited because of the lack of insurance as the lump to grew in her breast, I thought he would be tired of dealing with mountains of paperwork from insurance companies. I thought he would be tired of low Medicaid reimbursements and how the healthcare profiteers rob badly needed dollars from the system for obscene profits. I thought he would want to get rid of incompetent doctors who smear his profession. I thought there would be well planned attacks on problems of the uninsured, bad doctors, low Medicare reimbursement and healthcare profiteers.

Instead, we were told our healthcare system needed only to cover a few more Americans with an intellectual appeal only Rush Limbaugh could love. He told us it was Henry Waxman’s fault that we did not have a good house bill.

To be sure, many in the red-state right-wing crowd cheered. He was giving them what they wanted. Those in the crowd had heard weeks of lies and some were still mad about President Obama being elected. He told them exactly what they wanted to hear. It’s what it takes to win elections, right?

Maybe his election as a Democrat was a calculation. Since there was apparently little difference between he and his right wing challenger, maybe he decided the coattails of President Obama were just enough to push him over the edge.

President Obama is on the edge of historic healthcare reform and his biggest challenge may be those right-wing wannabes in his own party. I am beginning to understand how consensus is fleeting in Washington, especially when supposedly moderate “Blue Dogs” sound more like right wingers. I would have assumed a Blue Dog would have at least mentioned cost containment.

Griffith’s right wing stands weren’t limited to healthcare. He told us the first consideration in immigration reform would be to “shut down that border”. I am sure he didn’t mean the Canadian border. Oh, wait, maybe he wasn’t talking about immigration at all. Perhaps he referred to shutting the Canadian boarder to drug imports.

It would seem the Blue Dog’s have collectively decided to be a part of the no crowd. Instead of being the moderates they hold themselves out to be and legitimately trying to reduce healthcare costs, they have decided to stop any real reform. I hope they reconsider because the  out-year deficits which they crow about so much could be greatly reduced if they decide to be part of the solution instead of the problematic no crowd.