How a Town Hall Meeting Ought to be . . . .

Tuesday my wife and I attended a Town Hall style meeting held by Republican Representative Rob Wittman of Virginia’s First Congressional District. United Virginia had a table outside the meeting location and their people were handing out professionally made signs that read “Health Care for America Now.” I asked them if they were associated with ACORN – they said “No they are too radical.” However the signs looked identical to those available through “Health Care for American Now” and they are associated with ACORN, MoveON.org, and other radical organizations. I think they lied.
You may be surprised that my Congressman actually read the bill that is in the House of Representatives. A copy of the bill was perched on a stool in the center of the stage – it was huge. Wittman admitted to skimming through some of the technical medical jargon as it was not germane to the implementation of the “government option.” He explained to the crowd at the Dodd auditorium in Mary Washington College why he was not going to support it. That brought about two thirds of the crowd to its feet in a sustained standing ovation. His listed three principles that will govern his support of a plan: (1) Lower the overall cost of health care, (2) Don’t mess with what works, and (3) Cover several million chronically uninsured. Standing ovation.
On entering the venue we were encouraged to fill out 3X5 cards with our name and home town if we wanted to speak or ask a question. Though I did, I wasn’t called upon. I was moved by one woman who told the story of fleeing California for her kids. According to her, California is so overwhelmed by illegal aliens that schools stopped offering programs that her special needs children required. She fled to Virginia. California is a beautiful State, rich in natural resources with a diverse, talented, and resourceful population. Bad government has utterly squandered all of it. There are no bad States, just bad governments.
One knot head stood up and detailed all the democrat talking points including the assertion that the US was number thirty in health care on a list of nations in the “World Fact Book” compiled by the CIA. I just looked that up – actually we are 50 of 224 countries (many of which I have never heard of). The overwhelming majority of them are in Western Europe including all the tiny ones – Andorra (2), San Marino (5), Guernsey (12), Gibraltar (20), Monaco (21), Lichtenstein (22), Jersey (25), Faroe Islands (28), Malta (29), Luxembourg (31), and Isle of Man (39). Does anyone honestly think that it is worth moving to Bosnia and Herzegovina (43) in order to scratch out another 0.39 years of life?
It is probably debatable whether or not government health care contributes to European longevity. Europeans might live longer because we have been protecting them for over 60 years. Maybe they live longer because they don’t work very hard and take insanely long vacations.
It is interesting that the greatest practitioners of socialist medicine, Russia and Eastern Europe are not represented in the top 50. Albania is 51 and Michael Moore’s health care paradise Cuba is 55. Russia, the crucible of Obamacare comes in at 162.
In Korea (# 40), the compound word that is used for America is “Mee-Guk” and literally means “beautiful country.” They call their own country “Han-Guk” for the river Han that bi-sects their country. Imagine if we called our country “Mississippi Country” and referred to Switzerland (#11) as “beautiful country.” How would that affect your psyche? The visa section of the US embassy in Seoul was the busiest in the world when I was in Korea not long ago – I wonder how Koreans think our health care stacks up.
People like that knot head don’t appreciate the uniqueness of America. If President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, or Leader Reid screw this country up ----- there is nowhere to go.
Conservative Resistance – Day 303