Advice for Town Hall Meetings?

August 12, 2009 1:43 AM

What should someone know before going to a town hall meeting on health care reform?

Today I went to a town hall meeting on health care reform in Alhambra, California. I went to listen to Congressman Adam Schiff (D) and the many panelists present, but unfortunately I couldn't hear that well because people were shouting and booing.

Anyway, long story short, many people kept telling me to read the bill, because they actually have read the bill. Of course, I have not, and so I didn't argue with them. One woman said that she had read the bill in its entirety, and mentioned that on page 16, the bill declares that insurance companies can no longer enroll new people once the bill is passed. Now that I'm home, I looked it up, and what the bill actually says (I think) is that insurance companies can no longer enroll people in old policies that are grandfathered in from before the reform.

Here is the section that she was referring to:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text?version=ih&nid=t0:ih:255
(Even the people commenting on that section are confused.)

So, basically... It seems to me that she read it, but misunderstood it. (It is entirely possible too, that I'm the one misreading it.) However, I can understand how she got the interpretation that she did. I wish I had had this information in front of me when I was talking to her. Or better yet, I wish I had had the bill and the internet with me, so that we could look it up and actually talk about it.

I guess if someone were to ask me what to expect when going to one of these town hall meetings, I would tell them about page 16 and the (honest) misreading of it, since more than one person brought it up at the town hall. I'd like to be more prepared in the future, but unfortunately the whole issue is really confusing... I'm sure that if I read the entire 1018 page bill, I wouldn't understand most of it either...

So I was wondering...

Dear metafilter, what should someone know before going to a town hall meeting on health care reform?

posted by every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes to health & fitness (9 answers total)

Reading/printing http://www.healthcarereformmyths.org/ seems like a good idea.
posted by blenderfish at 1:48 AM on August 12, 2009

Also, you should know that many if not all of the shouters and booers will be Republican party astroturfers.
posted by flabdablet at 3:07 AM on August 12, 2009

Bring a smartphone. Could have looked it up right there.
posted by floam at 3:36 AM on August 12, 2009

Thanks, everyone. Sorry, I know it's in bad taste to respond to my own post, but I'm kind of bothered by what happened today. Don't have a smart phone, but next time I'll:

1) Put a copy of the bill on PDF onto a netbook, and save a copy of blenderfish's link.

2) Bring a lawn chair (if it is again an outdoor event) so I don't stand for four hours...
posted by every_one_needs_a_hug_sometimes at 3:45 AM on August 12, 2009

What you need to know is that the people doing all the screaming and shouting are actually paid protesters brought in by Big Pharma, who aren't there to have a debate - they're trying to shut the thing down. So, there's not much point to arguing with them. The best thing you can do is to somehow distract them from shouting so much. :-/
posted by Citrus at 6:25 AM on August 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is some advice for supporters of health care reform who attend town halls.
posted by Tin Man at 7:27 AM on August 12, 2009

Shamefully, you shouldn't expect to see any civil discourse no matter what your view may be.

If you're against the administration's plan, you can expect a beating. If you're in favor of the plan, you might get one too. And if you're a member of congress, you shouldn't feel left out either.

And while there's almost certainly paid protestors (and likely paid proponents too), I wouldn't discount the number of people who are truly opposed to either the plans currently being discussed or government-run universal healthcare in general. I'd expect the amount of opposition varies a good deal by region, so you may or may not encounter it where you live.
posted by tomwheeler at 8:08 AM on August 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

This is something along the line of Tin Man's post. I stumbled it just a day or so ago.
posted by ijoyner at 7:27 PM on August 12, 2009

The purpose of town hals is for elected officials to pretend they're listening to constituents. If you want to learn your representative's position - good luck on that - try contacting the legislative assistant responsible for that issue. (The receptionist will even be able to tell you their name.)

If you want to try to inform the rep of your opinion, write a letter. Those are carefully logged and tracked, and almost always generate some form of response.

The town hall is almost certainly a waste of your time, because you won't get enough time with your rep for any useful information to flow either way.
posted by mikewas at 10:09 AM on August 13, 2009