|
|
High numbers, hot rhetoric at Bishop town hall
|
| | 
|  |
| |  | | 
| | | Hundreds never made it inside the packed Sachem High School East auditorium last Thursday, but argued their cause outside with signs and words. Photo by Joe Darrow (click for larger version) | |
September 03, 2009 | 09:50 AM
With fewer and fewer congressmen holding public meetings in the face of hard-to-control crowds, Rep. Tim Bishop's town hall meeting Thursday night in Farmingville was far more than a consultation on 1st District matters. It was a national battleground in the war for health care reform.
The main weapon in Bishop's arsenal was information. House Resolution 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, was projected onto a large screen behind the congressman on the stage at Sachem High School East, with an aide scrolling to various points in the text as constituents questioned whether authorization of "death panels," expanded federal funding for abortions, a national takeover of health care, a reduction in Medicare benefits or insurance coverage for illegal immigrants are contained therein.
In each of these hot-button cases, Bishop's emphatic answer was "no."
The insurance premiums Americans pay have doubled while provider profits have increased by 400 percent since 2000, according the congressman. The CEO of a large Island employer told him that their insurance costs have gone up 18 percent in a year, Bishop said. "This is the system you want to protect," he told reform critics, a system "that bankrupts families, that bankrupts small businesses."
Tempers were hot in the overflow crowd — hundreds of whom never made it into the filled 900-seat auditorium but waited in vain outside for an appearance by the congressman and from time to time broke into chants. Bishop later said he sent staffers outside to collect questions. "I have committed to answer every person who wrote down a question during the town hall — whether you were seated or not," Bishop said in a release the next day.
Inside, speakers on both sides of the issue were met with standing applause, sign and fist shaking, and catcalls in turn as they touched on controversial issues. At one point, a debate between attendees in the auditorium turned physical and police removed a man, although they later said no arrest was made.
When John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor, identified himself before questioning Bishop and admitted that he is not a 1st District resident, a cry went up among attendees, leading to several minutes of chaos only stifled when Bishop asked Durso to yield to a constituent.
The rhetoric, too, was lightning hot. In response to a question by Louise Pasci of St. James, Bishop said the proposed legislation does not include so-called "death panels" that would limit how much care users of government-offered insurance would receive. Instead, he said, a committee would be tasked with defining, in contrast to higher levels of coverage, what constitutes the basic level of care a policy can offer.
But Pasci was not reassured. "That's like Nazi Germany," she cried. Unlike Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who received a similar charge at a meeting the week before, Bishop did not respond to the barb.
Sean Maddox, 12, of Wading River asked Bishop whether the plan would restrict the procedures available to his grandmother, who has a heart condition, in order to cut Medicare costs. "There's not a single word [in H.R. 3200] that would prevent your grandmother's physician, her and your family from determining the care she receives," Bishop replied.
The bill expressly forbids federal spending on health insurance for illegal immigrants, nor would it fund abortions beyond the three circumstances — rape, incest or to save the mother's life — currently covered, Bishop said.
Unlike Bishop's Setauket town hall appearance in June, where critics of reform outweighed supporters in passion, volume and numbers, proponents turned out in roughly equal force Thursday. Many of their questions implied their concerns that proposed legislation would not take reform far enough, particularly in insuring the poor.
What will the bill do to ensure all Americans have adequate health care, wondered Herbert Biblo of Stony Brook: "Who is concerned with the poor?"
Bishop's reply, which he reiterated in response to several related questions throughout the evening, was that the plan would expand eligibility for Medicaid to higher incomes among the working poor. It would also give credit for insurance premiums to citizens with incomes lower than 400 percent of the poverty line, or roughly $42,000 a year for an individual, limiting monthly insurance costs to 12 percent of their paycheck, he said.
Critics accused many reform advocates of being "plants," saying liberal-leaning union members were bused in from outside the district. While Long Island labor organizations were at the meeting in force, all speakers inside, with the exception of Durso, named places of residence within the 1st District. Meanwhile, some antireform groups in attendance Thursday who have dogged Bishop throughout the summer, such as the Brightwaters-based Conservative Society for Action, also include members from other congressional districts.
Bishop did not always speak in favor of H.R. 3200. In response to one questioner, for example, he criticized the plan for failing to reign in medical malpractice-suit costs. Medical tort reform is "not a silver bullet," he said, "but it's part of the solution."
Mary Brockenstein of Coram asked Bishop to condition his vote on the outcome of a districtwide referendum to assess constituents' support for reform.
"Our system is a representative democracy," Bishop replied. "I have been elected to make judgments," which, he added, he would do after extensive research on the proposal and consultation with constituents: "Every two years you get to make your judgments."
| |
|
|
|
| |
Copyright 2010
(631) 751-7744 | news@tbrnewspapers.com | www.northshoreoflongisland.com | About |
|
| |
|
