Perriello’s town hall mostly civil
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Tom in Town
5th District Representative Tom Perriello held a town hall meeting at Charlottesville High School.
The Daily Progress/Matthew Rosenberg
Lee Godfrey of Staunton expresses her support for a single-payer option in proposed health-care legislation during Rep. Tom Perriello’s “Tom in Your Town” forum inside the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center in Charlottesville.
More than 1,300 residents packed Charlottesville High School’s auditorium Tuesday night to deliver their views on health care reform to U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello.
Unlike many other such town hall meetings hosted by Democratic lawmakers, Perriello’s forum was not disrupted by vocal opponents of the health care proposals under consideration by Congress.
If anything, the crowd at Perriello’s town hall was mostly in favor of health insurance reform.
Many asked Perriello, D-Ivy, to support the so-called “public option” that would allow the federal government to provide health insurance coverage.
“Will you support a public option?” asked Bob McAdams, who was laid off from his software consulting job in December and has struggled to get his health insurance company to cover his medical costs. “I would do it in a heartbeat. Get the insurance company off my back.”
As McAdams told his story, an opponent in the back shouted: “Get a job!”
Despite the occasional disruption, the crowd was largely civil to those on opposing sides of the debate.
Proponents said a “public option” would drive down health premium costs and increase the quality of coverage as private companies are faced with competition.
Opponents, on the other hand, said they worry a public option would put private insurance companies out of business, increase federal spending, and move the country toward socialism.
Mike Teu of Keswick said he is skeptical of what he calls “Obamacare” because he is concerned about government spending and the growing federal deficit.
“Whether you think [health care reform] is right or wrong, we can’t afford it,” Teu said.
Teu added that Perriello’s town hall Monday in Ruckersville was attended by a crowd that largely opposed the idea of health care reform.
At Tuesday’s event, Olivia Johnston, a musician from Charlottesville, challenged opponents of health care reform to cancel their coverage and see what it is like to be uninsured. “I’ve lived with health insurance and without health insurance,” Johnston said. “Believe me, living with health insurance is a lot better.”
For his part, Perriello said he expects to support a health care reform bill if it increases competition in the health insurance industry and drives down premium costs for middle-class families.
“I came to Washington to solve big problems that both parties hadn’t been facing,” Perriello said.
Perriello said he welcomes supporters and opponents at his constituent meetings, dubbed “Tom in Your Town” events. The forums were originally meant to be an opportunity to meet one-on-one with the freshman congressman, but turned into town hall meetings after constituents expressed a desire for an open town hall-style event.
“Democracy has become the thing to do on your summer vacation. That’s great to see,” he said. “These are not angry mobs. These are citizens raising legitimate opinions on both sides.”
A reporter asked if Perriello is feeling heat from the Democratic leadership in the House to support the health care bill. “I don’t really care about the pressure from the leadership,” he replied. “I care about getting it right for the folks in my district.”
Many residents who turned out Tuesday night wore blue armbands to show their support for health care reform.
“The U.S. is the last industrialized country to not take care of its citizens in that way,” said Charles Lewis of Esmont, who wore a blue armband. “We need a system that’s going to cover you. If the private companies won’t cover you, somebody needs to do it.”
Outsidethe auditorium were a vast quantity of signs, many produced by President Barack Obama’s Organizing for America that read: “Standing Together for Health Insurance Reform.”
Not all signs were friendly to the idea of reform. A few people held signs that showed a picture of Obama with a Hitler-style mustache. “He Changed,” the signs read.
Bill Hay, chairman of the Jefferson Area Tea Party, a conservative group that opposes higher taxes and increased government spending, said it was “kind of funny” to see such a large crowd of health care reform supporters holding signs printed by liberal-leaning organizations.
“We get vilified. We’re accused of being funded by everybody. We’re not,” he said. “And tonight we saw one of the biggest mass organizations of people. This was very well organized. They were all holding the same signs.”
Perriello has scheduled dozens of similar forums. The next is from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at the Fluvanna County School Board Office in Palmyra. Another will be held 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 20 in Lovingston.
For a schedule, visit Perriello’s Web site, perriello.house.gov, then click on “newsroom” and “latest events.”
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Reader Reactions
You said: “As the polls show there are only 28 percent of you against health care reform…“
That is incorrect overall 49% are against Obamacare and 34% are for it. Among independents 50% oppose Obamacare and 27% support it. That’s not so stellar.
This means that the media is completely off base by calling this a right wing orchestration. It is clearly movement that has stirred from Obama’s hitting a nerve with the entire country with his lack of truth, shoving legislation down peoples’ thoats and coming out of the woodwork with overspending programs. NO ONE TRUSTS A WORD HE SAYS NOW!!!
Why don’t you ask Tom P. these:
-Ask Tom if he thinks the strategy of demonizing Americans (largely seniors)concerned about healthcare is a good strategy, this includes independents and democrats and alienates extremely important constituents; senior citizens.
-Also why does he allow our gov’t to promise transparency and then bring bills in at 2am that are organized behind closed doors for a vote without anyone reading them.
-Ask Tom why congress and the administration promise bipartisanship while being the least bipartisan in the last ~35 years, even with a solid majority. Also why democrats are excoriating fellow dems like yourself, eating their own. Does he think it is a good idea to have the dems saddled with this bill, particularly if it turns out to be the debacle we all expect and that the dems will have to take responsibility for in the decades to come? or should he get some support and use some ideas from the other side of the aisle?
On Aug. 20, “Tom in Town” will be in Lovingston, Nelson County. I will be at that meeting and if their is an open forum, rather then one on one, this will be my question.
“Tom you are not sure if you will endorse a Public Option if it is in the final health care bill.
So my question: “Tom if there is no Public Option, will you write a bill that removes the age barrier from Medicare and allow any one who wishes to join Medicare to be able to join the Medicare program?
“There is much to applaud Tom for, especially the part of getting Rural doctors better reimbursement.“
I guess the meaning of misinformation depends on who’s misinformation is misinforming whom?
The above statement, at face value. says that Tom deserves credit for “getting” rural doctors better reimbursement.
Never mind, its not law. Never mind, you can only find a faint hint that it is in any Bill being shared with the public. never mind that, if it gets in there, the same bureaucracy which created the current inequities—which pay a doc in Hooterville, VA, less than a 30 minute ride from our two fine hospitals, substantially less for the same identical procedures as a doc in the “city” of Charlottesville, will be charged with the task of making ammends—will they? how much?
Never mind, how unlikely it is that Tom did this selfless act (LOL) all by his lonesome.
Oh well… story telling is a favorite pasttime.
By the way, in doing some research (having learned that you cannot believe much of anything you read nowdays, least of all in the DP), I came across this gem of a quote from Tom: “Many people, including myself, worried that we were moving too quickly and spending too much to fix the problem, so I insisted that Congress spend the month of August sharing accurate information with the American people and listening to everyone’s concerns and hopes.“
I am absolutely amazed that Tom, once again, exceeded my expectations, by getting the entire 111th Congress to yield to him—something the Junior President from Illinois seems unable to do. Did we elect the wrong rookie to the wrong job?
I suppose just the idea that the Federal Government is expressing interest in taking over the nation’s health care system is enough to scare us even without knowing what is “in the bill”. I am not surprised at all by any of this anti-health bill uproar. If indeed health care accounts for 16% of the economic output of the United States - that’s a pretty big government program being created. And it’s being created to solve the problem of only 12% of the U.S. citizen population.
erratum: sorry the 9.0mm was incomes above $75k/yr.(not the $50k I had typed), clearly they can afford insurance and are uninsured by choice.
Interesting…
Gordie, I am with you, in part on the rudeness—no call for it, really—and perhaps you do not even realize how condescending you can sound—eg., “if you were following the news…“ which clearly, I am—and that can lead to less than satisfying exchanges.
There is a lot of over the top rhetoric, and more than enough bad manners to go around. I applaud Tom for his demeanor, and his control of the situation.
As for those so-called Blue Dogs, this Congress’ version has proven thus far to be toothless, having capitulated on some rather poor legislation to date.
If I were Tom, I’d follow your advice, too. There is room for him in the 5th—which you must realize by now runs the full spectrum of liberalism to conservatism, socially and fiscally—as well as demographically, from very poor to very wealthy, poorly educated to well educated, rural to somewhat urban—as well as his party, if he sticks up for his core beliefs AND listens to all the people.
You can’d dismiss people’s problems with the bill, by saying there is no bill, while saying that Tom knows what is in the bill, and we should all trust what Tom says. That’s more than a bit circular.
Forget the wingnuts on both sides for a minute.
If you are a concerned citizen—regardless of your personal leanings and life experiences—you generally expect (and I use that term very losely, as most of us have felt dissapointed in the past, and ‘expect’ has become more like ‘hope for’) promises made to be promises kept.
A chief complaint, in this administration, is that transparency was promised. And perhaps it is unrealistic to expect our President to reign in the Party he supposedly leads—but—to date, the legislative process has not only been less than transparent, it has run roughshod over long established protocols. That’s a fact.
Don’t even bore me with some tit for tat justification. I hold both political parties responsible for the state of the disunion.
In this particular case, it is enormously frustrating to find the bill online—hear that there are who knows how many groups working behind closed doors—and express one’s concerns. If people are spreading, as you claim, misinformation, can they be held accountable for responding to what they have been given to work with? If you cannot see the log in your own eye, loyal Democrats, why complain about that speck in theirs?
Your own arguments concerning Medicare—with all due respect—are baloney. Medicare is a successful idea that has real problems.
Before I load up the bus with more people, and head up a steep hill, it might be nice to fix its flat tires—unless the plan is for all of us to push that bus up the hill.
By the way, that claim of improving Medicare reimbursement to rural doctors is real news to me. I’ll have to check with my spouse on that—she’ll be thrilled if there is a shred of truth to it. Her practice has been taking Medicare through all the lean years, at a significant loss—subsidized by others on commercial insurance plans—and hers is by far the most efficient, and has the lowest overhead burden, of any medical practice in Central VA.
Now, you can take potshots at doctors, and insurance companies, and pharmaceutical firms, and everone else that makes the current system work—good and bad—but please, please, give others a chance to voice their legitimate concerns.
We’re not all facsists. 
I’ll tell you why people are freaking out. The recent bills of several thousand pages have been completed at 2am and then voted through that day, who knows what is in them. That is why people are acting pre-emptively on such a crucial and massive issue (1/6 of the US economy), you can’t just Rahm something this huge through behind the scenes on the American public without political consequences, as Tom Perriello should take note of. You are correct there is no final bill, you have to go on what is in the five bills in the house and the one the finance committee. You have to go on what congress has in the bill and what they are talking about. The gov’t/public option is clearly there, health administrators that discuss your end of life plans and whether you want to hear it or not the limits on that care is a part the house bills. There is a great fear that a vast overhaul of the entire system will deteriorate the quality and eventually destroy our healthcare that is one of the highest quality in the world. Seniors who are at the point where they need the care they have paid in on for their whole lives are justifiably irrate that they may get third world care potentially leading to a shorter life span. The daughter of a friend of ours got terminal cancer in Canada and was told she would have to wait 6 weeks for treatment, luckily she was able to go to the US and pay for quality and timely care.
Why not just correct the small areas that need it like interstate insurance competition, pooling of risk groups that can come in groups outside of an employer and gov’t laws restricting this type of insurance. Removing the tax burden on the self insured through tax credits and some sort of coverage for those unisured who are U.S. citizens and are not unisured by choice i.e. making $50k+ per yr. Census data lists 46.6mm uninsured, 10mm are not U.S. citizens, 17.6 incomes >50k, 9.0 incomes >$50mm this leaves 10mm legitimately unisured or 3% of our 304mm population that should be covered. Obama has really struck a nerve on this one and it is independents who are moving away from him en masse, this is not just a right-left issue.
hypocrisyalert I agree with the statement there is no bill yet and no one knows what is going to be in it.
What I don’t understand is how so many people could be against something they do not know what they are against.
That is why I call so many liars and distorters. They are making up things that no one knows what is really happening.
As far as your question of why change? All I can say, if it is for the better, why not change.
Posted by ( hypocrisyalert ) on August 13, 2009 at 9:32 am
What I was trying to say is that there is no single agreed upon bill and that even if there were, no one yet has been able to explain why/how it is a better alternative to what some have now.
If you want a cut rate health care system then move to Canada or Cuba with Michael Moore, gordie don’t try to impose it on us and have them Rahm a bill through that is unlikely to be read by 80% of the illiterate congress.
What will happen with the public/gov’t option is that most people including the poor and old on fixed incomes will have the subpar gov’t healthcare system and then a private care system for the rich. So I hope you are an elitist liberal b/c we’re all going to have to make a lot of money to be in the top end of this bifurcated system. The gov’t option will inevitably become a bloated uncontrollable, TAXPAYER SUPPORTED program. If you think the gov’t option won’t crowd out private insurance, look at Hawaii where it was quickly dismantled. As a wise woman once said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].“
Also it sounds a little “fishy” that all of the supporters were let in and sat on the floor, while those opposed were put upstairs. Sounds like and Obama like stacked audience, that was ridiculous that he planted questions in New Hampshire. It was also horrible to mislead seniors and say the AARP supported “his bill (Obamacare)“. I can see why the public is losing trust in this guy and his approval is down to 47%. Call it rationing or limited care or whatever you want but that eventually occurs in all nationalized systems, it’s like a mathematical equation cut costs, increase users, decrease quality or limit the types of procedures that can be done. If you think this will be an efficient and well-managed program by the gov’t, I’m sorry but you are living in an impractical dreamworld.
1qaz1qaz stick it in your ear.
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