More Mullane/Courier Times Health Care Hilarity

Yep, it’s time for more “piling on” of our U.S. House Rep over health care courtesy of Bucks County’s official conservative house organ (here, a follow up to this post)…

Maybe Congressman Murphy gets it now: People want to be heard before health care reform is decided. Whether it's to ask questions, make a statement or hear what Murphy thinks, citizens want face time with their congressman.

That's pretty clear - or should be - after hundreds of worried citizens showed up at two meetings Saturday formulated to handle just a trickle of constituents one on one. The so-called "Congressman on Your Corner" meetings at a Morrisville restaurant and a Levittown supermarket initially were by invitation-only - automated calls to local voters. But a reference to the meetings appeared in this space Thursday in a letter from Murphy Communications Director Kate Hansen. With the meetings out of the bag, so to speak, the expected small gatherings grew large - and boisterous.

So Patrick Murphy is being baselessly accused here of secrecy on this issue?

Memo to the Courier Times editorial board: you people are nothing but partisan hammerheads.

So to speak.

Fortunately, the New York Times published this report today, telling us in part the following…

Senator Arlen Specter and the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, were heckled and booed in Philadelphia on Sunday.

In Austin on Saturday, a throng of protesters enveloped Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, at a supermarket where he was trying to meet constituents. They carried signs that said “No Socialized Health Care” and chanted “Just say no!”

And in Morrisville, Pa., Representative Patrick J. Murphy, a Democrat, expected 25 people at a “Congressman on Your Corner” event on Saturday. Instead he was met by a boisterous crowd of about 150 and a barrage of questions on health care.

The protests, organized by loose-knit coalition of conservative voters and advocacy groups, were a raucous start to what is expected to be weeks of political and ideological clashes over the health care overhaul President Obama is trying to push through Congress.

The conservative groups, including FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, are harnessing social networking Web sites to organize their supporters in much the same way Mr. Obama did during his election campaign. Democrats said they expected supporters of the health care overhaul to mobilize against Republican events later in the month.

And as Think Progress notes here, the two groups noted above organized the “tea parties” that have taken place throughout Obama’s presidency thus far, and likely will continue into the future (with the “teabaggers” providing comic relief, if nothing else – hopefully nothing more sinister or potentially illegal than that).

And “hundreds of worried citizens” – that’s way too damn funny, Courier Times editorial board. You want to learn more about what these “worried citizens” are up to? Read this excerpt from the NY Times story telling us more about the Doggett protest…

In Texas, Shirley Markley of Austin said she received an e-mail message from a friend about Mr. Doggett’s meeting on health care and immediately wanted to attend. Once a liberal Democrat, Ms. Markley said, she voted for Senator John McCain for president last year and worries that Mr. Obama’s overhaul will lead to socialized medicine.

When she arrived at the store, she said, a large crowd had already surrounded Mr. Doggett. “People were shouting and booing his answers,” she said. “He said, ‘A few angry people won’t change my mind.’ ”

Eventually, Mr. Doggett cut the meeting short and headed for his car. “He jumped in and fled,” Ms. Markley said with a laugh. “It was like he was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. It was a beautiful thing.”

Does this sound like someone who “want(s) to be heard before health care reform is decided,” as the Courier Times editorial tells us?

And since it’s Tuesday, you can count on J.D. Mullane to join in the fun (here)...

Murphy had notes, but they didn't make points clear. He struggled. He reminded me of a rookie reporter who has digested a mountain of information on a big, complicated story, but has gotten lost in the trifles, and has forgotten to explain, beyond platitudes, why it matters.

The people in the room wanted straight answers to straight questions.

Will seniors be "counseled" into early graves?

How much will national health care cost, and how do we pay for it?

Does the bill keep malpractice lawyers from suing doctors?

Does Murphy support a "public option," that is, government-controlled health insurance?

Wow, J.D., for someone who supposedly has read the entire 1,018-page draft of the House bill (linked in the prior post above), you should have been able to answer these questions in your column (oh, silly me, I forgot – as you’ve said in so many words before, since you’re a columnist, you believe you can write anything you want).

I will actually agree with the Courier Times on one point, though; a heavily organized and scripted “Town Hall” meeting is a good idea. However, it should include a visible police presence to prevent disruptions from “worried citizens” who have no interest in any constructive activity whatsoever.

Update 1: It looks like more "worried citizens" were well behaved here (and here is yet another reason for a public option).

Update 2 8/5/09: This Letter to the Editor in the Philadelphia Inquirer tells us about another "worried citizen"...

I attended the health-care town hall at the Constitution Center ("Passions high at health meeting, " Monday) hoping to actually hear intelligent discussion of a complex and serious issue. By chance, I ended up seated in a nest of right-wing fanatics. They ruined the event for everybody there, which I am sure was their intention.

I managed to hold on to my sense of humor until the 70-plus-year-old lady seated next to me lurched to her feet, face twisted in fury, and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Excommunicate her!" This was no doubt directed at Health and Human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius, who has been subjected to a campaign by conservatives in her home state of Kansas to have her cast out of her church because of a lack of sufficient vigor in her opposition to abortion.

Excommunicate her?! Wow. These people are straight out of the 13th century. But what was really going through my mind, as my mouth dropped open: What in heaven's name would this woman's grandchildren (or perhaps great-grandchildren) think to see her behave so badly in public? It's hard to see how people with these attitudes could ever play a meaningful role in setting policy.

Keith H. Cox
Philadelphia

Yep.

Update 3 8/5/09: Here's more on the "worried citizens" disrupting meetings on health care reform.