E.J. Dionne has a column in the Washington Post today that tries to tell the real town hall story. Despite polls showing again and again that the majority of Americans are in favor of reforming our health care system, the media played up a few loud and disruptive town halls.
Mr. Dionne says:
Instead of listening to the loudest voices, we encourage you to learn for yourself how health care reform will affect you with this nifty interactive webpage and by visiting our clearinghouse of information. We, also, encourage you to read Mr. Dionne's entire article.
Mr. Dionne says:
Over the past week, I've spoken with Democratic House members, most from highly contested districts, about what happened in their town halls. None would deny polls showing that the health-reform cause lost ground last month, but little of the probing civility that characterized so many of their forums was ever seen on television.
"I think the media coverage has done a disservice by falling for a trick that you'd think experienced media hands wouldn't fall for: of allowing loud voices to distort the debate," said Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, whose district includes Columbus, Ohio.
At her town halls, she said, "I got serious questions, I got hostile questions, I got questions about how this would work, I got questions about how much it will cost. I also got a lot of comments from people who said it's important for their families and businesses to get health-care reform."
Rep. Frank Kratovil hails from a very conservative district that includes Maryland's Eastern Shore and says it didn't bother him that he was hung in effigy in July by a right-wing group. "As a former prosecutor, I consider that to be mild," he said with a chuckle. The episode, he added, was not at all typical of his town-hall meetings, where "most of the people were there to express legitimate concerns about the bill, wondering about how it was going to impact them" and wanting "to know the truth about some of the things that were being said about the bill."
The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer for one of the television networks at a large town-hall meeting he held in Durham.
The stringer said he was one of 10 people around the country assigned to watch such encounters. Price said he was told flatly: "Your meeting doesn't get covered unless it blows up." As it happens, the Durham audience was broadly sympathetic to reform efforts. No "news" there.
Instead of listening to the loudest voices, we encourage you to learn for yourself how health care reform will affect you with this nifty interactive webpage and by visiting our clearinghouse of information. We, also, encourage you to read Mr. Dionne's entire article.
