I posted this comment in Scarecrow’s post earlier today, and he suggested that I place it here as well, so here goes. I just got back from a public health care meeting with Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington State. There were ten panelists plus the senator there–the panelists represented:

- the CEO of the local medical center,
-the legislative and regulatory affairs manager for Regence BlueShield,
-a family physician with Group Health Cooperative who is also a member of Physicians for a National Health Program who also has 3 years’ experience in New Zealand and Australia in national health plans,
-the CEO of Legacy Health System non-profit hospitals,
-a teacher of nursing,
-a lady from Washington State Nurses Association,
-the CEO of Providence Centrailia Hospital a Catholic non-profit group,
-a member of the AARP board of Directors,
-a local family physician, and
-the executive director of the Free Clinic of SW Washington state.

Each panelist was given a few minutes to present his or her take on health care reform, and then the senator took questions from the audience, which had to be written on cards and handed in before the meeting began.

Senator Cantwell basically said that single payer hasn’t vanished, and that there will be a single payer amendment attached to whatever legislation comes out of committee. (She also brought up Baucus throwing single payer people out of his meeting a while back, and I believe she described it as “escorted” out–not bringing up the “arrested” part.) She said she wanted to see single-payer elements in a public option; ie. the government should be involved in order to provide leverage power to drive down costs. She didn’t get as specific as I would have liked here–(note: Scarecrow gave me a suggestion about what to ask her regarding specifics about a public option, which I did ask but they didn’t pick my question to answer.) She said Medicare is a big beaurocracy (my note: like health insurance isn’t?). She also talked about health care reform, stating that primary care is not where the big costs in health care are, that mental health should be covered, that long-term care should be community based (she is apparently working on a long-term care bill currently. She said long-term care is where a lot of the costs are.) She said she’d like to preserve what’s good in the V.A.

Mr. Votus prepared a list of everyone on the finance committee, which includes the senator, and how much health industry money they’d taken since 2005, and was handing that out to all. The moderator asked her about how health industry money affects how she approaches health care reform, and she didn’t really answer the question. She said the money she got came from individuals, not PACS, and then she went on to something else rather quickly. (As you’ve probably surmised, Mr. Votus is a bit of a live wire at these types of events–gotta love it.)

A couple of the panelists said some interesting things. The man from Regency Blue Shield and the lady from Providence Centralia Hospital both used the phrase, “Quality, not quantity.” Sounds like a talking point to me to not provide universal coverage. The guy from Regency also made a big point to say that a lot of times its our own fault that we’re sick. He said to get up and exercise and don’t each french fries. Not that I disagree that being overweight and not eating properly can contribute to bad health, but come on–not eating fries and taking a jog are not going to get my pancreas to begin pumping out insulin again if I’m a type one diabetic, which I am.

The man from PNHP said we need to just jump in and do it with regard to single payer, that a lot of the problems of making a switch to a different health care system will work themselves out through the single payer process.

The moderator surprised me, because even though he was a CEO of a hospital, he sounded pretty damn progressive. He said the congress needs to move the debate away from money, that healthcare should be thought of as a “we” not “me” proposition (which he got from Sicko), that any other country would find our current health care system immoral, and that Obama won because of health care reform that he promised, and that we currently have a very bad health care system in place (no kidding dude).

At one point, I can’t remember if it was the senator or the moderator, asked for a show of hands if we in the audience though health care was a right, and most of the people raised their hands. There were quite a few single payer people in the audience, and a lot of older people who get insurance from AARP. Saw a handful of Dems. I know from the central committee meetings.

Near the very end of the meeting, a woman stood up in the audience, even though they weren’t taking questions straight from the crowd. She said she was a primary care physician for one of our local Indian tribes, and asked the senator to do something for people who make just enough money to cover themselves but not their kids or other family members. She gave one example of someone who works a fairly low-paying job who might get health insurance from work, but then the monthly fees are very high to cover their kids–she mentioned $400 per month for each family member you want to cover, and of course they can’t afford it. She got quite a round of applause from the crowd.

Community access television was there filming the event. I will see if I can find a link to it when they post it. It’s not up yet.