Tuesday, August 18, 2009

A Fairly Sedate Health-Care Town Hall

I attended and wrote about the health-care forum with U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan at Santa Fe's Unitarian Universalist church Monday night. My story is HERE.

As stated in the story, the majority of the crowd, judging by applause, etc., was strongly pro-reform. Organizers of the event didn't take any chances though. Participants didn't get to directly question Lujan or the other panelists. Instead, they wrote out their questions in advance to be read by a moderator.
Ben Ray Lujan
I had predicted earlier in the day that there would be a lot of emotion and anger there. Not from conservatives, but from progressives upset about President Obama's statement Saturday that the public option for health insurance was only a "sliver" of health-care reform.

There were some questions to the effect of "how can we hold down insurance prices without a public option?" But Lujan basically agreed that the public option provision is important and necessary, so it wouldn't have served any purpose to yell at him about that.

Lujan might wish that he had not urged people to consult with non-biased fact-checking Web sites. He quoted the Congressional Budget Office that the House health care bill would create a $6 billion surplus.
You can see what Polifact.com says about that HERE.

Here's a story I did last week about a health-care roundtable led at the Roundhouse by U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman. that was even more sedate.