Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The "DOC-LESS" TOWN HALL IN YAKIMA-REPORT

Dear Yakima Valley Progressive masses. I'm a little down on myself tonight. For not standing up with the very few folks who, of course, faced ridicule from the clap-happy Republican majority here in River-City who have been hypnotized into thinking they really believe in bi-partisan answers to the health-care issue. (Like Bush would have allowed anything like that, eh?)
But after 25 years living in Seattle, I guess I should not be too hard on myself. I truthfully wanted to see what we're up against, feel me? Mind Fog. Still here. Not mine. I want to thank those who spoke up for a public option at the microphone--I believe the first of which is Richard,...let that be all for now. I think maybe three followed him as the evening wore on, amidst lemming-claps.

--The State Senators presented a plan, without hand-outs, then took questions. Many folks thanked them for their presentation, and spoke on some of the plans like Health Savings Accounts and the specifics of these ideas, blatantly ignoring even the hint of considering the public option as something in their reality. Translation: Me thinkee Socialized Medicine makee wee into Nazi country...scaree. Forgetting too that we rank 37th in the world. --
Regarding that 37th in the World fact from the World Health Organization--( http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html ) Bill Hinkle must have some reallly HOT sources. He stated as fact that this rating from the World Health Organization is not true. I guess Cle Elum's got a GOP think-tank. Who knew?!

A few physicians..I think three...spoke mostly against Medicare and more special topics..including tort reform, one droned on so long I really couldn't follow her complaint, except that it involved some pet peeve against Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital. If they have their way on the tort reform, perhaps my physician will have the freedom to do my operation after three or four Mint Juleps or Bloody Mary's more accurately if my name was Mary. Y'gotta loosen up, right? It probably does need looking into, but NOT with the rampant pre-conceived , "abortion issue" manner in which Republicans do almost everything. There's no room for negotiation with them. Never has been.
For the record, here's what I would have uttered at the microphone at the Yakima Convention Center on September 22, 2009--maybe I should've had a drink before.....( children, don't take that as license!)

Wendell Potter, former CIGNA Corp. exec. In charge of Corporate Communications, went public this summer after 20years with the company. He was not fired. He left his high-level position, with corporate jets with gold serving trays onboard—yes, he said that,--He left…..as his own decision. Not fired. No differences in personality. His own decision. On good terms. Except he’d had a change of heart once he faced the truth.

(..isn’t there something in the Bible about a rich man and an eye of a needle here?)

A note of background:

At the end of 2007 Potter defended CIGNA when it refused to pay for a 17 year old’s liver transplant surgery claiming the procedure was experimental. After protests garnered a lot of attention to the company, only then it reversed it’s decision..but it was too late. Just two hours after her surgery was approved, Nataline Sarkiyan…died.

(of course this url would not have been spelled out to my gape mouthed Republican Yakimaniac audience, had I the nerve to give this presentation….: here it is for you: http://cbs2.com/local/nataline.sarkisyan.CIGNA.2.615167.html )

This summer Wendell Potter went public at a Senate Congress Committee for the first time: He stated there, “The industry and it’s backers are using fear tactics as they did in 1994 to tar a transparent and accountable, publicly accountable health care option as “GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTHCARE”…”..He goes on, “ but what we have today, Mr. Chairman, is ‘Wall-Street run Health Care’..that has proven itself an untrustworthy partner to it’s customers, to the doctors and hospitals who deliver care, and to the state and federal governments that attempt to regulate it. “

see it:

He stated on Bill Moyers’ show that at that level in the Corporation you see the numbers, but not people. You just want to please Wall Street expectations.

(Then, the obligatory “question” to the all-Republican group gathered onstage.)

What are you doing to make me, as a citizen, and as a 28 year veteran Seattle RN who understands baloney PR when I hear it, --what are you doing to make me put more trust in a Corporate-run, profit driven executive policy that determines my health care coverage, that is, the way it is now --- than an open, ..and to quote Wendell Potter himself, “an accountable, publicly accountable health care option..” ..one where people who CAN be held accountable, make coverage decisions, AND are NOT profit motivated?

Whatever drivel may have slipped from their mouths in response to my question, the question would remain in the rhetorical category. Unanswered. I should have asked it. However, given the audience, the experience was beneficial in taking the local temperature…rectally, in a way. I noticed that when the few courageous locals who have some common sense about the true state-of-affairs regarding health-care spoke, quite a number of Yakimaniacs “jumped” as if someone had stuck a glass thermometer into the sphyncter muscle that we normally cannot see without mirrors.

Full disclosure: before I stepped from the mic, after listening to the local doctors who are against "government-run health-care", I'd decided that I would add:

As a nurse of 28 years, I've learned by now not to trust that every smiley-faced physician who has developed that "you-can-trust-me" face has as full a grip on all reality as they think they do. They never seem to remember that they are only one physician. There is a need in their lives...a valid need...to BE like that because they DO have a difficult job to do and require that kind of trust to do it well. With all that in mind, then WHY has the AMA in September been polled at 63% favoring a choice including both the public option and private insurance.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112818960


FYI: The meeting tonight will air on Y-PAC when they announce it.


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