Meek hosts Miami town hall on health care reform
From the Examiner.com
Despite the contentious subject matter, so volatile that fights have broken out across the country and at least one person had a finger bitten off, Thursday night’s Health Care Reform Town Hall, held at Miami-Dade Community College’s North Campus and hosted by U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D - Fla, was surprisingly peaceful. With most of the approximately 500 seats taken, Meek’s first-come-first-served, open-door policy certainly had the potential for controversy and violence, but from the moment the first question was asked it was clear that the attendees were ardent supporters of President Obama’s health care initiative.
During the evening, several references were made to the violence at other Town Hall meetings. One man who watched town hall meetings on C-SPAN, described protesters as “lunatics with the yelling and the screaming.” He found this night was “a breath of fresh air” due to the civility exhibited throughout the evening. The substantial contingent of officers from the Miami-Dade Police Department found themselves with little to do as, one by one, randomly-called participants offered pro-reform comments rather than asking probative questions, and frequent applause was heard throughout.
While there were a number of groups that attended, including Planned Parenthood, union members, and a strange contingent dressed in blue tights and Mexican wrestling masks, there appeared to be a healthy cross-section of the county represented. Before the meeting began, Adam Sharon, Communications Director for Congressman Meek, proudly noted the ethnic diversity obvious in the crowd. “I’m impressed,” he said, “looking at the audience, there is a good turnout demographically.”
“Of course, I can’t tell who is Democrat and who is Republican,” he added smiling.
It turned out that most were likely Democrats. This may have been a result of the Congressman’s outreach program, through social networks like Facebook, blogs, and his official web site, which brought in his supporters. The media, on the other hand, was relatively quiet about the town hall. An online search of the Miami Herald, showed one article two days prior which mentioned the meeting in one sentence, but no other mentions could be found.
Nonetheless, it was clear that there are a number of citizens in Florida, of diverse backgrounds, who want reform and are adamant about a “public option.” That point was made several times by attendees, and Meeks made clear his support for the public option, the implementation of which he compared to the break-up of Ma Bell. “We got lower prices and better service because the companies were competing,” he said, adding, “A public option will keep insurance companies honest.”
The point was also made by some of the attendees.
The most poignant moment of the evening – one which Meeks promised to bring up in future reform discussions with his colleagues – was when a woman spoke about her friend and neighbor, a small business owner who had died of a heart attack last week while still searching for affordable health care. The woman related that her friend “had been offered health insurance at $1,500 a month, (but) his pre-existing (heart) condition was not covered for 24 months.” Predictably, he died without insurance.
Another powerful moment was when invited panelist Monica Russo, president of Florida’s largest health care workers’ union, SEIU, discussed Republican outcry over Obama’s desire to push reform quickly, and their desire to take the time to work on the issues. After reading a quote from a 1978 Ted Kennedy speech in which he called America’s health care disgraceful, Russo demanded, “Wait to work on this? We’ve been working on this for 31 years!”
Despite the easy time, Meek came prepared and made a forceful argument for the need to reform. And he’ll return to Washington D.C. with a message from a large number of constituents – “we want reform now!”