Is anyone on the State's Health Care Forum phone call?

[glinda]

[dflprincess]

1. I was - but I got cut off

and I swear it happened before I could ask any questions Klobuchar might deem hostile :evilgrin:

[glinda]

2. Me too! I pressed *3 and then dead air. Lost the whole call....

[Spike from MN]

9. Heh. You probably should have called from someone else's phone.

I'm sure Klobuchar's office knows better than to let a call through from your number. ;)

They claim they weren't screening the calls though.

Klobuchar's goal was to hear from "all areas of the state and all viewpoints," Zakula said. Her staff was told not to screen callers to prevent critics from expressing their views, he said. They were to ask callers their names, where they were calling from and what subject they wanted to address so the same questions wouldn't be repeated.

But he turned down a request from the Pioneer Press to observe how the senator's staffers selected callers who got through to Klobuchar.

http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_13191062

What a crock. If they weren't screening calls, why not let the PP lackey observe? And Klobuchar's goal was to hear from "all areas of that state and all viewpoints." Damn, she's sounding more and more like Normie every day. Aside from that, I'm pretty sure that my viewpoint is one she would NOT want to hear. ;)

[glinda]

3. If anyone was listening, can they sum up what they heard at all?

[Hansel]

5. The questions were pretty much a list of RW talking points.

Are they going to cut Medicare? How can you save $500 billion without cutting Medicare? Tort reform will save everything. Taxing health care bad and cost to taxpayers. Rationing if you add more people on. Impact on small business. Government involvement in medical decisions. Public Option.

I thought that Amy, the doctor and the nurse practitioner did a really good job of answering the questions.

One thing I did notice was that 3 of them where really strong into wanting people to be able to buy into the health care plan that Federal employees can buy into so that they can get the benefit of the large group lowering costs. I'm guessing that's how she defines the public option. The doctor pointed out that they have options to many plans.

They all made a strong point that if reform isn't done the prices of health insurance are going to double again in the next 10 years so something has to be done. That either you're going to pay for it through reform or you're going to pay a lot more by maintaining the status quo.

I think they did a really good job of explaining how medical providers could change they way they do things to provide better care and achieve cost savings. More patient involvement in decisions, teams of doctors, more aggressive treatment of certain conditions. The focus of their answers seem to be more on health care reform than I've heard from other town halls and I'm glad she had medical professionals there to force that focus.

I like how she drove the point home that small business owners need health care reform because they want to provide health care but can't afford it. She gave an example of one small businessman who is paying $24,000 for health coverage for his family. He said if he knew then what is knows now it wouldn't have started the business. She said that would have been too bad because she wouldn't now be providing protective vest for our soldiers. She drove the point home about providing affordable insurance would provide more creative people to start businesses.

Overall I thought they did a really good job. It was the best town hall so far and the answers were thorough, and intelligent. It's the 1st one that I actually learned something from.

I was particularly impressed with no matter how obvious that the questions were RW talking points, they answered them respectfully and did a good job of calming concerns for some I'm sure.

I got the impression that Amy thought that Olympia Snowe was a little more on board then we've been led to believe and she does believe health care reform will pass with Republican votes.

I learned some things from it and had a couple of ah-hah moments, especially in terms what the doctor was saying about restructuring the way health care is provided.

Amy also made the point the MN would like reform because our state pays out Federal $'s to other states because they don't have the health care efficiencies MN has. MN gets only $.72 back for every $1 we pay in so I think that is where she was coming from.

[dflprincess]

6. Did they take any questions about single payer?

A week or so ago Klobuchar was saying she liked the coop idea. I don't really trust her on this issue (well, truth be told, I don't really trust her on any issue).

Franken has also expressed some interest in coops, though this last week he seemed to have come around a bit on that. But, I had a chance to speak to Franni Franken (an absolutely lovely person) yesterday at a DFL event where she was representing Al and she even mentioned the coop idea - so I'm thinking he still sees those as an acceptable "reform".

(BTW did you see in today's Strib that, while Health Partners gets referred to as a coop their CEO says it really isn't one?)

[Eric J in MN]

8. That may be how Amy Klobuchar defines the public option,

...but not how I define it.

The federal employee plan has the employees buying private insurance they choose from a list.

A real public option means the government is the insurer.

[cynthia]

4. I've been listening

I pressed *3, but just got a message that the operator knows I want to ask a question and then it went back to the forum.

To sum up, there have been lots of talk about tort reform and tweaking the bill to model some of the best of what we already have in Minnesota. Her only comments about the public option is to talk about bringing down costs.

[glinda]

7. The best in MN.? What best in MN.???? Maybe Mayo but I do not see any "Health Insurance System" that

saves money or works. There is no "Co-Op" that works. there is no "Group" Insurance that is affordable IF you are unable to work as is yet do not qualify for being handicapped. And what about Dental? Major Dental surgery? Oh that's right! Fly off to some damned Country to get it. P. U.
Sorry, but I am miffed that they talk around things. The Insurance Companies have no rights at all with the people that they are screwing. DFLPrincess, I am with you on Amy. Perhaps a "brain transplant".

[mascarax]

10. Thanks for the recap, Hansel & everyone else

I don't know what happened - not only did I get cut off, but I didn't get The Call until after 7:30! Nice. At 7:10, I asked, "Where's my friend Amy?", to no avail. So I only heard about 20 minutes.

When she was asked about the public option, she replied that she'd look at "everything on the table" and said she was for a *competitive option*. She did mention co-ops. I need to follow up and write to her - and Franken, for that matter. The Mayo CEO seemed more willing to say the words "public option" though.

I agree that she did a good job of sanely answering some obvious RW talking points. She was very clear that she didn't like spending money but did say that Obama was going to make sure it was funded (not taxin' & probably Death Panel chargin' everyone).

I've never been on a one of these tele-calls, but I wasn't impressed that I wasn't called at the beginning.