Make no mistake, we have legitimate concerns about health care reform
As some of you may know, I am apt to listen to NPR’s Morning Edition on the way to work every morning. I have found them to lean a bit left, but overall to be fairly even and balanced in what they report and how they report it. I have to say however, I was disappointed by what I heard this morning. I am going to include a link to what I hope will be the audio of the story after 9:00 AM EST, but I found them to be very biased in their reporting this morning.
It has been widely circulated throughout the news media how conservative activists are going to townhall meetings with members of Congress and are protesting what they perceive the proposed health care plan to be. While some of these meetings have turned a bit ugly in their tone, that does not take away the fact that a lot of us have legitimate concerns about the proposals that are before Congress.
What I found to be so offensive about the NPR story this morning was how they insisted on portraying the people who were disrupting the meetings as just being from a very small group of people who were being whipped into a frenzy by conservative media sources, such as FOX News and Rush Limbaugh. They even went so far as to remember the protests over proposed Medicare changes outraged senior citizens to the point that they were bodily protesting against then-House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois. They even had a quote from one of the leaders of those protests, who just happens to be a Democratic Congresswoman now. They did their best to point out that the protests in 1989 had legitimate concerns that were driving them, but that the recent protests were just the work of fringe groups.
I am no fan of Rush Limbaugh or FOX News for that matter, but I am a conservative and I do have legitimate concerns about what is happening. I am not an activist and I would dare say a lot of the people who are trying to ask questions at these townhall meetings are not activists. They are just normal Americans who see what is happening and how it is being shoved down our throats. President Obama is certainly using his bully pulpit to make it look as if those who are against this legislation are just interested in trying to maintain the status quo and are against change. I would contend that is spin at it’s finest.
Not everyone who is protesting against this legislation is doing so at the bequest of lobbyists or special interest groups. We are just normal Americans who do not appreciate how we are being force-fed reform for the sake of reform. Does health care need to be reformed? Most certainly it does, but the way they are going about it leads me to believe there are a lot of things in this legislation that are not good for America.
The leader of the Blue Dog Democrats in Congress, Arkansas Representative Mike Ross has even run into protests in his home state. In a townhall meeting in Arkansas, he had to just sit and listen to the concerns of legitimate citizens. These were not activists, but people who are worried that their free will is in the process of be eroded by the health care reform plan that is being rushed through Congress. He made the promise at the meeting that he would not vote for any legislation that would take away the freedom Americans have to choose how to manage their health care. I hope he and enough members of Congress can stick to their guns and influence any health care reform that comes out of their halls.
Yeah, I like to listen to NPR for sport…. the sport is to see how long I can go before yelling at the radio. I think the record for the longest I’ve made it is about a minute and a half…. then I see how long I can go until I have to change the station and I think the record for that is about half an hour.
Then I have to go take an oil shower to get the scum off and go drive my 4×4 down to get some pork rinds, beer and shotgun shells at the church before returning to watch 4 straight hours of Dukes of Hazzard just to balance it out.
Good times…
-red
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I’m certain that there is truth to both sides of this argument. There are plenty of people in attendance who have legitimate personal concerns with the legislation and how it will affect them. But how much of that concern is the result of intentional misrepresentation of the legislation by determined opponents for political purposes (that it’s purely a single payer plan, that it mandates end-of-life counseling for the elderly, that it forces the Federal govenrment to pay for abortion)? The legislation is massive and it’s certainly complicated so scare tactics are VERY easy and they are being used quite effectively. Listen to the questions being asked at these town halls — a significant portion of them are based on wrong information. “Fact” sheets are often anything but. Yet they come from “reliable” sources and many to many people accept what they read without verification. I am not a blind advocate of this legislation. There are things I am concerned about but my issues are based on a real understanding of how I’m impacted not a uniformed acceptance of a chain email saying the government is going to stop caring for my 96 year old grandfather.
One thing I have a problem with is how there is so much shouting and commotion going on at the meetings. That is one certain way to make sure nothing gets accomplished because the people who have legitimate questions seldom get the chance to ask them. I want this legislation, which is changing daily, to be judged on it’s own merits.
That being said, I also have a major problem with the way the news media is portraying those of us who do question the legislation as a bunch of right-wing activists who have been stirred up by the likes of Limbaugh and FOX News. I listen to neither.
Larry,
Perhaps you have a point. I agree that nobody wants anything shoved down our throats-the best reason of all to have a skeptical contingent who can evaluate the real beneftis and draw backs of the eventual bill.
But here’s the problem- the loudest, most visible opposition leaders have been screaming about socialism, single payer, government-as-decision maker (as if a third party-your for profit insurance company- doesn’t call all the shots now) and all the rest since BEFORE the bill even started to be written. They-including the RNC, with its misleading commercial campaigns- have been waging a misinformation war, one that has been based largely on rhetoric and supposition and hasn’t made a priority of highlighting legitimate concerns.
I agree, Laurie. There has been a lot of hoopla about a lot of things that are not actually in the legislation. I really wish both sides would get past this childish rhetoric and focus on the legitimate concerns about the bill. Of course, that would require common sense and I am not sure many of them are capable of that.
I have read a number of excerpts from the Democrat Health Bill that have been posted on various web sites. To me the bill is unsettling in a number of ways, as is the radical agenda in general of the Obama administration and the Democrat congress.
Fair enough, Raymond.
Would you be willing to address your specific concerns? So far, what’s floating out there is largely ideological. While I don’t discount basic objections to socialized medicine, it’s tiresome that so many have skipped the whole step of addressing the potential bill and the issues contined and jumped directly to those. Especially from the GOP, this falls flat, as the party platform included health care reform as a major objective during the 2008 election cycle.
What makes this potential bill unworkable in your eyes? Are these solvable issues?