0 for 6; not a single opponent of health care has a basic familiarity with their constituents health care needs
Today I spoke with Representative Steve King and Senator Jim Demint. (Sorry for the lack of production over the last coupla days; I’m still recovering from the swine flu and I’m not feeling my best, so today was a short day for me.)
Anyway, maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t know man… Why don’t these folks know how many uninsured there are in their states/districts? Isn’t that one fundamental datapoint that should be in the forefront of all of their minds? Could it be that they think they represent AHIP? The Chamber of Commerce is their only constituent that matters? Pharma is more important than the millions of people that can’t afford life-sustaining medicines?
Anyway, here are the videos from today… (if you got here by direct link to this post, you’ll find Virginia Foxx, Darryl Issa and Joe Wilson just below this post).
Senator Jim Demint
Representative Steve King:
Great stuff Mike. I think it’s great you’re collecting questions to be asked.. you should do a standalone piece one of these days just collecting. I wrote a similar thing a few days ago. One person wanted to know if a Congressman would support an investigation of the financial collapse, a new Pecora Commission? Someone else wanted to know how McCain could put forth an amendment against net neutrality when just a few years ago he admitted he knows squat about computers.
Curtis
3 Nov 09 at 8:22 pm
Also here were my questions, copied over from dKos. Keep up the good work!
When 3500 people were killed by a terrorist attack the entire country joined together to stop that from ever happening again.. we know 44000 people die every year because they don’t have insurance. Why don’t we band together to stop that, we don’t even have to kill anyone to do it?
I heard we spent like 35 Billion dollars a year on maintaining nuclear weapons. That means we could spend somewhere in the 400 Billion dollar range in a 10 year period. Is that fiscally conservative?
Why does everyone complain about debt when we spend $100B/year on healthcare reform, but not when we spend $650B/year on dubious wars?
other random questions..
FDR famously said he didn’t want their to be one millionaire from the war..
I’d love to know how many millionaires were made from the Iraq war.. how many billionaires? how much did Cheney get?
Curtis
3 Nov 09 at 8:23 pm
I actually did a diary on this “what would you ask a Congressman if you could” topic recently. So I have some more questions ready.
If our insurance system is so good, why does no other industrialized country want to import it?
How can McCain write an amendment on net neutrality? He admitted he doesn’t know squat about computers!
Why hasn’t there been a new age Pecora commission? Why did we make too big to fail banks bigger?
Curtis
3 Nov 09 at 8:30 pm
I see you’ve abandoned the “medical bankruptcy” phrase after Congressman Issa explained to you how the system actually works. If you expect Congressmen to be prepared for your questions, is it too much to ask, as readers of this site, that you do a little research before asking the questions? I’m starting to feel like I’m watching O’Reilly when I come to this site, with the ambush journalism and the misstated premises built into the questions.
JBFC
4 Nov 09 at 3:12 pm
Oh, pluheese…
“Medical bankruptcy” and “bankruptcy due to medical bills” is the same frickin thing. Issa and his pals love disputing what the meaning of is is when it suits their needs, but anyone that’s looked at health care in America knows that by far, medical bills push more people into bankruptcy than any other category.
So split hairs all you want, but we both know you’re reaching.
Actually, come to think of it, there’s a name for this kind of stuff: it’s called trolling.
Mike Stark
4 Nov 09 at 4:28 pm
Hey, you’re the one who abandoned the term, not me.
JBFC
4 Nov 09 at 6:09 pm
Health Care Reform in the Senate worries me because it does not cover much long term care.
Luigi Fulk
30 Nov 09 at 10:38 pm