Notes from Feingold listening session today~ good session!

Boy, our man Russ knows how to handle this format.

Pepin County listening session, in my school, about 50-60 people there, overwhelming majority talking about and FOR UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER! There were a couple of negatives, two folks who were really against helping ANY illegals, and one lady (who Russ' timer guy kept holding the 'please conclude' sign up, but she kept trying to ignore it) said she was against any help for people with HIV, illegals, people who are obese (to put it charitably, she could have dropped about 40 to get to a good BMI), and then she said she had three articles to read from. Russ told her to wrap it up, and she got snippy, saying something along the line of "I want my say" to which he held up a sheaf of written questions and said "So do these folks". She started to read some Bible verses, and sorry, I had to leave. She was also talking about how she paid for her health insurance and didn't have any sympathy with any one who didn't do the same.

One of the next speakers talked about how, in a nation that purports to be Christian, we can let so many people go uncared for when it comes to health care. The next speaker took the above mentioned gal on head on, and said, "You think these folks that don't have health insurance are being taken care of for free?? All of us who have health insurance NOW are paying for them. Let's make it fair and have a government option to take care of these folks. If you think you aren't ALREADY paying for their health care, you are dreaming."

A lot of folks talking about the US doing a better job of looking into HC in France, Canada, etc. One gal talked about some emergency care she got on a trip to Thailand (for a serious eye infection, saw two specialists, got a prescription, and all for $40).
Russ seemed to not know at all that insurance companies are now trying to send US citizens abroad for 'offshore' health care.This was a big article in the NYT this week. He said he'd look into that, as well as using the judiciary committee to look into the aspect of anti-trust being used on insurance companies with their unfair practices.



Another man talked about how he sold health insurance and now sees the product getting shoddier and shoddier, excluding and dropping people. A lot of folks here are artists and small business owners who say they are being priced out of the market, even if they can get in. Another gal told a personal story of being dropped by her insurance for depression. Like how is someone supposed to prevent that?

Anyway, it was a good meeting, and there are a lot of progressives here who came out to tell Russ to keep fighting for us.
It was civilized (we had the town police chief there, but there was no need.)

Russ always says, and I am going to all-cap this~ WRITE, EMAIL, OR CALL YOUR SENATOR OR CONGRESS PERSON, IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. REALLY!!! IT AIN'T OVER YET, GET ON IT!!!

:kick: