Congressman Courtney made some opening remarks (which can be viewed here) and was joined by a couple of special guest speakers, who briefly addressed the attendees before a lengthy Q&A session. One of those guests was Judith Stein, who has spoken at a number of health care forums around the state. Last night, as she was telling a personal health care story, someone hollered out that she should just "switch" to another health insurer. Take a look at the video below to see how Ms. Stein responds:
The second guest speaker was Jenny Bass, whose family has had a farm in Eastern Connecticut for 299 years, but can no longer afford health insurance. While she told her story and spoke in favor of health care reform, some members of the audience treated her with disrespect. One such person was later given an opportunity to address the crowd:
This is something that healthy people who oppose health care reform say all the time. It relies on the assumptions that if you are once healthy that you can and will always be healthy, and that people who eat healthy diets and regularly exercise never need expensive medical care. Both of these assumptions are flawed. Statements like that are right up there with Medicare recipients who stand in firm opposition to government health plans:
"I've been an independent voter most of my life, I've lived in this district for most of my life, and I've never been to a town hall before, but I'm here because I am appalled that the private insurance companies are spending 1.4 million dollars a day to kill the public option, paying off and busing in phony citizen groups; the insurance companies know the only way to kill reform is to get people of good conscience fighting, while they laugh all the way to the bank. They don't think very highly of our intelligence.
"But I think that this year - this time - they're wrong."
The majority of the room erupted in applause, with only silence and no booing coming from the stunned wingnuts.
For the rest of the meeting, they still did make SOME noise and still talked back when they heard things they didn't like - but no longer loudly and abrasively enough to disrupt the meeting and interrupt any who spoke in favor of a public option for several seconds at a time. Their cover was blown.
If you'd like to read a little more about the forum, a firsthand account of the event can be read at Woodstock, CT Café.
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