Sen. Brownback’s Visit
September 30th, 2009
Since I asked for suggestions on the Brownback town hall, I figured I ought to report what happened.
He was scheduled to spend about 30 minutes in it; he probably spent a total of 40 or 45. He arrived a few minutes early, went around the room shaking hands and asking each person their name (including me). It was polite on the one hand, and a little odd on the other, as he was occasionally reaching over chairs to reach people far away.
Anyhow, he stood up front and had a little speech to start with. He spent the first 5-10 minutes talking about local sports teams. It might have been a nice icebreaker if it was 30-60 seconds, but it just felt weird by the time it was over. Everybody knew he was here to talk about other things and had very limited time. He then launched into the economy, talking about keeping taxes down and making sure they’re low in Kansas for the recovery. He touched on energy, supporting wind energy (which led to his most memorable comment of the morning: “This state blows, and it’s got lots of wind, too.”) He also came out in favor of coal, oil, and gas. Basically he’s pro-energy. Can’t go wrong with that, eh? He rode our prototype all-electric ZTR mower, and praised it quite a bit.
He touched on health care briefly, saying that he favors incremental changes to bring down costs. He thought health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans (such as one option at my employer with a $2500 deductible) were good innovations. He then opened it up for questions. There was a brief awkward moment when nobody raised their hand, so I did.
I started by saying where I agreed with him. I told him I agreed that health care is way too expensive, that I agree that we need liability reform, and said that we pay almost as much each month in health care as we do in all federal taxes combined. I was going to continue, but he interrupted, and said, “Are you serious?”
“Yes. 80% as much in fact.”
“Do you have an illness in your family?”
“My wife has asthma, a thyroid disorder, and we had a baby this year. That’s it.”
“Wow.”
So I continued. I told him I was concerned about the 46 million uninsured Americans, that they weren’t getting the care they needed. I pointed out that many of them wouldn’t be able to afford that $2500 deductible in the HDHP, let alone regular doctor visits. And I said that it is our “moral and even religious duty” to take care of the least of these when it comes to health care.
He answered by first saying that nobody goes without care — “that’s the law” — because anybody can get care in any emergency room in the country. Then he spent several minutes describing how he thinks the government can’t manage anything, and thus a single-payer system wasn’t right for us. After a few minutes of this, he asked if that answered my question.
I said that I don’t care how the 46 million people get care, whether it’s a public option or subsidies for private companies, just that they get it. I also acknowledged that ERs must provide “necessary stabilizing care”, but pointed out that 20,000 Americans die each year due to inadequate health care and reminded him that ERs are not required to provide diagnostic or preventative services, or long-term treatment of things like cancer.
For the first, but not the last, time of the day, at that, he got really quiet, sort of hung his head, and said something like, “Yeah, I agree. It is hard on the ‘least of these.’ I wish we could do more.”
And moved on to the next question.
At this point, it got weird. The next question was a guy that stood up, saying how we’ve got to put God back into the constitution. He said he’s lived long enough to see the moral decline in this country, and it’s going to hell faster than we know. We need to be God-fearing again, he said. Brownback, in reply, again did the quiet hang-his-head thing and said, “I agree.” Then moved on.
We then had a question about state’s rights, “nullification”, and the 10th amendment. Though it was obvious some issue was underneath it, I couldn’t figure out just what it was. Brownback, predictably, thinks that the federal government has grown way too powerful. (Ironic for someone that supported the Patriot Act, but hey.)
Then one other question, and as he was going to wrap it up, a yelled question from the back: “What’s good about Kansas?” Brownback was caught a bit off-guard, but launched into talking about aerospace, and how he hopes to lure wealthy retirees from California to settle here.
All in all, an interesting experience. More respectful than I feared, more scary than I imagined, and about as genuine as I expected a politician at that level gets.
Categories: Uncategorized
You guys could always stop electing people who would be considered nearly crazy in the rest of the western world, that would be a start.
Reply
John Goerzen Reply:
September 30th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Hey, we don’t have a monopoly. Need I mention Berlusconi?
Reply
Boy, I’ve had it up to here with politicians who think government can’t work. What a cop out!
Reply
Thanks for reporting on the town hall, as the only
other town-hall coverage i’ve seen is either a mob
scene or, in print, reports of the mob scenes–never
what’s actually discussed–or, in your case, what the
monologue includes versus what questions bounce
harmlessly off the guest/host/moderator. Thanks
all the more for giving the foreign readers of your
blog some hope for thinking that we here in the
U.S. haven’t totally degenerated into a faction-
riven squabbling nuthouse, at least in some
quarters, even if our Congress continues to be as
feckless as ever people started actively seeking
the office
Thanks, more importantly, for giving the Senator
something to think about. It sounds to me like
you made a very good case for him questioning
whether his party-line stand isn’t at odds with his
private morality and a more just social order.
While i doubt that he and his party will ever
sacrifice their perceived anticipated political gain
for the sake of the country, nor that, were they
so willing, their political opponents would yield as
much ground as it would take to win them over,
thus sacrificing their own perceived political ad-
vantage in being able to blame the other side as
do-nothing, it’s not like God couldn’t make it hap-
pen, and maybe He’s using you to do it
Reply
I wish we could do more.
That is a crock, the only reason single payer is not in the current Senate bill is because of a fear that the Democrats can’t get 60 votes. They won’t even attempt to debate the issue on the floor of the Senate because of this fear of a Republican filibuster. They could do more rather easily, they just won’t.
Reply
‘I wish we could do more’ is not a crock, nor is it a copout.
It represents the mature understanding that every penny of every material benefit that the that the government provides to one citizen comes from out of the pocket of another.
As would most of us, I’m sure Sen. Brownback would probably like free, top-notch health care for everyone. But he realizes that ‘free for everyone’ isn’t really free. And as a civil society, some level of minimum care regardless of the ability to pay is universally expected, at some level of benefit, the confiscation required by the government to provide it becomes untenable both from a practical and an ethical point of view.
What one may think that level should be is extraordinarily subjective and often dependent on one’s circumstance. What that level actually is, is the result of the democratic process.
‘I wish we could do more’ is just admitting that he can’t justify the further taking of benefits from certain citizens and distributing them to others.
Reply
“Universal health care is implemented in all industrialized countries, with the exception of the United States.[1] It is also provided in many developing countries.” – (Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care)
So, how could “I wish we could do more” be anything but an irresponsible cop-out?
Reply
as others have noted, thanks for the balanced coverage of what happened. It is too scarce. Our media fails at this. The senator did not seem to be there for any input, just a touchy-feely moment with his constituents. I’d like to know who he WOULD listen to, if not his own people, oh, I forget his people dont pay him with trips and gifts. His imaginary opening speech: ‘thank you all for coming here, so I can spend a few minutes to make you feel good about electing me and I have no intention of listening to most of what you say’ I guess I’m a bit of a cynic about these things. and the ‘I wish I could do more’ bit, well exactly who has the power to vote on the issue buddy? uh, you do? duh.
Reply