Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D) of the 25th District of Texas was one of the first members of Congress to face the ire of his constituents during a recent town hall meeting at a Randall’s store in Austin over health care reform.
According to the Austin American Statesman:
“Doggett, D-Austin, spoke at the Randalls at Brodie and Slaughter lanes on Saturday. A video of the event on YouTube shows many in the crowd showed up with signs denouncing President Obama’s proposed health care plan. “Witnesses say that when Doggett was asked if he would support the plan even if he found his constituents opposed it, Doggett said he would still support the plan. From there, the crowd began chanting ‘Just Say No,’ and overwhelmed the congressman as he moved through the crowd and into the parking lot.”
What is remarkable about this protest is that the 25th District of Texas is one of the most liberal in the state, being majority Hispanic and containing the city of Austin, a liberal conclave in the middle of Red State Texas. Lloyd Doggett has been a reliably liberal Congressman, opposing the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, and supporting gay marriage, gun control, partial birth abortion, and immigration reform.
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Who said the Klan and Birchers have disappeared? That’s just all the Republikans have left.
So what makes these protesters “liberal,” a classification not used in the article?
Are you using the classic definition of liberal, so they are liberal because they want less government?
This would fit with the aritcle’s mention of Edmund Burke, who had this to say in 1790.
What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or to medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.
I doubt this was a Democratic audience. The teabaggers are actively going after any town halls and meetings like this, complete with shout-out strategies and methods to appear numerous.
From Obama’s recent speech on health care reform: “And if we fail to act, federal spending on Medicaid and Medicare will grow over the coming decades by an amount almost equal to the amount our government currently spends on our nation’s defense. In fact, it will eventually grow larger than what our government spends on anything else today. It’s a scenario that will swamp our federal and state budgets, and impose a vicious choice of either unprecedented tax hikes, overwhelming deficits, or drastic cuts in our federal and state budgets.”
Doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that the big government medical program is going to bankrupt our government so we need a bigger government health care program.
“one of the most liberal in the state, being majority Hispanic” looked like alot of white retired people to me. I’m from Austin and Randall’s is the yuppy’s grocery store.
There is no Obama Health Care Plan.
Amusing.
Probably the same enlightened Texas electorate that sees no problem with rewriting science to teach their students that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that there would be no USA without God… Oh yeah, and that evolution is bunk.
They should be asking questions like:
Why did you vote against an amendment that would require that the millions of new people who will be “automatically enrolled” in Medicaid under this legislation demonstrate that they are American citizens?
#6–Robart==YES if the “system” continues as constructed today, it will bankrupt the government. So change is needed. Do you disagree with that?
And a well considered change would be to stop the excessive procedure oriented sick care model we have today to one of single payer health preventative/early intervention model. That would allow the current 30-35% of money spent on profit/competition/waste to actually get spent on providing healthcare. Do you agree with that?
So the issue of one time/period of transition costs. Do you agree with that.
Now, put it all together. I know you can do it.
Bobbo, despite the easy anecdotes, early intervention/prevention doesn’t save money. The only way you save money is by restricting payments, or by rationing care. These two are really the same thing, since if you restrict payments you will have fewer providers.
Having the government run health care will not save money, for the simple reason that that is how bureaucracies work. People can cheat insurance companies, and they can cheat the government even more.
Universal Health issues: the Deficit, Rationing of Care, Supply of Doctors, and underhanded accounting
Examples pulled from today’s headlines
AP says: Tax Revenues Still Crashing
Oregon says no to chemotherapy, offers assisted suicide instead
Where will Obama find the doctors to cover 50 million uninsured people?
Fudge the numbers with a 4 year float: Taxes for Obama’s Health Care start in 2011, but the plan does not begin until 2015.
“liberal” protesters? (McCullah must think we are idiots when he wrote that headline.)
This mob seems just like those halfwit media-manipulated tea baggers.
Most of them look like they are already on single-payer government insurance but are too stupid to understand their own hypocrisy.
[I’m just here to stir the pot….ed.]
#12–MikeN==no, can’t you read/respond to what I posted? There is a lot of STRUCTURAL WASTE in for profit medicine. Under any single payer system, that waste can be applied to providing actual healthcare services.
After you have an efficient structure, you can decide on how much fraud you wish to allow. Thats a management issue. In general, as a statement of faith, that which is stolen/wasted by the government is usually a few factors below what happens when the system is raped by a free market capitalist.
But yes, I agree, the government run healthcare system should be run as efficiently as possible to its stated goal. That means we should not re elect the republicans into office until all the kinks get ironed out.
You know the Repuglican Mantra: Government Doesn’t Work. And everytime they are put into office, they prove it.
I doubt they were liberal, they most likely were driven in to “protest”.
But hey, call em whatever you want, I still think they’re idiots.
Here is a 10 page breakdown of the proposed HC plan.
http://tinyurl.com/mwn6cm
Here are some of my favorites:
Sec. 163, Pg. 59, Lines 21-24 – Government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
Sec. 441, Pg. 203, Lines 14-15 – “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it says that.
Sec. 1233, Pg. 425, Lines 4-12 – Government mandates Advance (Death) Care Planning consultation. Think Senior Citizens and end of life. END-OF-LIFE COUNSELING. SOME IN THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED RATIONING HEALTH CARE FOR THE ELDERLY.
Sec. 1501 (beginning), Pg. 659-670 – Doctors in Residency – government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.
Sec. 1711, Pg. 764 – The government will require preventative services – including vaccinations (no choice).
Sec. 1733, Pg. 788-798 – Government will set and mandate drug prices, therefore controlling which drugs are brought to market. (Goodbye innovation and private research.)
Sec. 4375, Pg. 828-832, Lines 12-16 – Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans, including self-insured, to pay for Trust Fund!
Sec. 3121, Pg. 935, Lines 1-2 – The government will develop “Healthy People & National Public Health Performance Standards.” They will tell us what to eat?
Sec. 2511, Pg. 992 – Government will establish school-based “health” clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted!
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• Sec. 399Z-1, Pg. 993 – School-Based Health Clinics will be integrated into the school environment. More government brainwashing in school.
“Doctors take the Hippocratic oath too seriously.”
>> Link Finder said, on August 3rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
>> Here is a 10 page breakdown of the proposed HC plan.
Here is point-by-point proof that you are a dupe of the big-money spin machine.
http://tinyurl.com/mwhfgf
These anti-affordable health care lists are pure bull crap.
I live in Austin, the local news said they were Republican and Libertarian protesters. Maybe he got liberal from libertarian, definitely not the same thing.
This link documents that these mobs are paid-for and orchestrated by Right Wing lobby groups:
http://tinyurl.com/n8wp5o
The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress
The Swift Boat / Tea Baggers were out again. This wasn’t a liberal crowd, it was an ambush crowd.
http://politico.com/news/stories/0709/25646.html
Democrats are taking heat on the ram-rod “health care” plan and you Obama-bots ooze out of the wood work to defend it.
Have you read it? ALL OF IT!
I doubt that any of you defending it have, and not many Congressional Democrats either.
But I’d bet the Republicans have gone through it with a fine tooth comb.
The Administration and Congressional backers of this “health care” plan haven’t done a good job of explaining the plan. These people believe it will make what they currently have worse.
But your pea-brains can’t accept that, instead you have to make accusations and ad hominem attacks.
Imagine pea brains making ad hominem attacks. How could they be capable of such a thing?
#20. The reports I am hearing nationally are that the majority of the protesters are Democrats.
Protest is healthy liberals, get over yourselves.
Just a bunch of paid, or wild, radicals (take your pick) with nothing to do?
What a bunch of stuff?
There does need to be change, but who in their right mind would trust Pelosi, Reid, or any of the others?
Bring on the demonstrators – I’m willing to bet most are sincere.
Bobb, you speak of a procedure oriented system that should be dumped in favor of a preventive care model. Having doctors make more money the less care they give does not sound like a good model, though it would save money. On the other hand, if you think you are going to generate savings by instituting preventive care, it won’t happen. Giving tests for 100% of the population that are only saving money for the 1% you detect a problem, this wastes money.
http://tinyurl.com/noso28
>> Scared of Clowns said,
>> Protest is healthy liberals, get over yourselves
But this is fake outrage, paid-for by overpaid lobby firms.
>> McCullough said, on August 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
>> #20. The reports I am hearing nationally are that the majority of the protesters are Democrats.
Where are you hearing that?
What I’m hearing — and it makes a lot more sense — is that these are fake protests paid-for by the same guys who brought (and bought!) you the tea bagging nonsense.
Here is a smoking-gun memo showing the protests are paid-for by right wing lobbying firms.
http://tinyurl.com/n8wp5o
PS: Why would Democrats protest healthful reform? We voted for Obama because he supported health care — along with more than few Republicans!
Are you going to accuse us, next, of protesting the end of the Iraq war?