See the pictures below taken by Becki.

I don’t think too many people (in Woodstock) knew about a Health Care Town Hall meeting being held this evening at Woodstock Academy. We heard about it from ‘Dbrownie’ yesterday and couldn’t find any official verification, so we were left hanging in the wind. We did finally hear about it from a verifiable source and that’s when we posted the notice.

So, I went to see what was up. The notice about the event noted a time frame of 6-7 PM, but the actual time frame was 6:30 to 8:00 PM. When I arrived just before six, there were not too many cars around. I had parked in front, so can’t speak for the rear parking lot. About ten of us were slowly walking toward the Academy buildings. The doors of the library and the gymnasium/auditorium were locked. There weren’t any helpful signs about either. Someone mentioned that it was to be held in the student commons, so we headed for the cafeteria. Once inside the building, there were signs pointing the way to the commons.

As we arrived, we were asked to sign in and put on name tags… a little odd, but effective for constructing a contact data base for the Woodstock DTC and getting a sense of where people were from. Margie Wholean and Jim Kaeding were busy with last minute organization details, pressing the flesh and generally trying to stay on top of the ever increasing numbers of people arriving for the meeting. One poster-sized sign was leaned against the wall of the hallway, having been confiscated from an energetic attendee. There was an orchestrated effort underway to minimize the possible intentional interruption of the meeting – a phenomenon, occurring fairly regularly nationwide. I learned later from Margie that they hadn’t put out a huge notification of the meeting in an attempt to minimize that possibility… that’s why none of us could find reference or notice of the meeting.

I was impressed by how many people came to this meeting that nobody knew about. By the time Courtney arrived there were easily 200 people in the room. An additional eighty or so arrived after Joe started speaking. I have to say, it was a little unnerving to see so many people at a Woodstock meeting that I didn’t know!!! My best guess is that no more than 15% of the 270-300 attendees were from Woodstock (the Norwich Bull has reported 350 attendees). Certainly there were a number of people that came from all over the Second District to support Joe. There were a decent number of Woodstockers from the DTC. But there were a whole lot of people that were from all manner of hill a dale in Connecticut. They were from Waterford, New London, Vernon, Guilford, Somers, Vernon, Moosup, Eastford, Scotland, Ashford… just to name the ones I can remember.

Jim Kaeding brought the meeting to order, clearly stated the ground rules and made the introduction. Joe came to the podium and was refreshingly brief. He mentioned that HR 3200 (his health care reform bill) should be able to offer health care that would be equivalent to the generous health care insurance given to our elected reps and senators (Courtney had opted out of the insurance program offered to congressmen because he was philosophically opposed to an indulgence not available to his constituency).

After Courtney’s brief remarks, he introduced Judith Stein – an attorney, founder and Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy in Willimantic. She gave us some historical background on Medicare. Just for reference, she noted that when Medicare was instituted in 1965, only 50% of people 65 years and older had health insurance – today 98% of that same age group has health insurance. According to Ms. Stein, there were much the same alarmist hue and cry arguments about socialized medicine and all the attending end of the world certainties (my verbiage) in 1965 as there are today. Of note also is that the administrative cost of Medicare is 2%, as opposed to the 16-20% administrative costs of private insurance companies. Similarly, private Medicare Advantage programs do cost less than Medicare, but the coverage they provide is less as well.

After Ms. Stein concluded her remarks, a local dairy farmer, Jenny Bass from Scotland addressed the assemblage, narrating the considerable cost – both financially and psychologically – of trying to provide health care for her farm workers and maintain coverage with a pre-existing condition.

As an aside, I wish I could have apologized to Mrs. Bass for the obnoxious and ignorant interruptions that she was subjected to. Of note, I don’t believe any Woodstockers participated in the rude behavior extended to her.

At this point, Representative Courtney resumed the podium to answer questions. In spite of Jim Kaeding’s best attempt to create a civil atmosphere, there was a visible Mason Dixon line drawn through the crowd. While I don’t want to paint a lop-sided picture of the anti-health care reform contingent, it did seem like they were less willing to let those speaking have their say unmolested (so-to-speak). Both sides acted like sports fans at a game – often with large doses of clapping, standing ovations and other positive/negative punctuations.

One of the points Representative Courtney made was that the insurance industry’s standard of not covering ‘pre-existing’ conditions would not be allowed if HR3200 passes, nor would unilateral policy revisions. It would also reverse the absurd inability of Medicare being able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for better drug prices.

There were many statements and questions taken from the floor. Courtney fielded most of them very well, providing cogent responses with a fair amount of information. He did tend to avoid the questions regarding the debt involved, but did have several reductions of current costs laid out with approximations of the savings involved in those.

There were questions about whether healthcare is allowed under the Constitution, whether this bill would mandate euthanasia, the cost of healthcare for illegal aliens and various statements of support. There was an abundance of testimony from healthcare professionals – doctors, nurses, medical insurance professionals. There was even a man whose family came here from Chile who said the bill reminded him of the Marxism in Chile.

An hour into the evening, there was between 250 and 300 people participating – seated, standing and even outside with their ears pressed up against the open windows. It was probably hovering between 80 and 90 degrees, the fans were barely noticeable (no AC)… and no one was leaving. All in all, it was a remarkable evening. I would have been happier had there been less spontaneous editorializing from the floor and less interruptions, but I’m funny like that. I think there was a good amount of information available for those who came to get information.

I did speak to someone who recorded the meeting on video and he’ll be posting it (some of it) on YouTube. As soon as I get an address for the URL, I’ll post it so you can see what he puts up. I don’t anticipate it being available until sometime this weekend. I’ll keep you posted! - Becki