McCaskill in Hillsboro, MO
I couldn’t make it on time to the recent McCaskill town hall meeting in Hillsboro, so I watched the live video stream from KSDK. Kudos to them for providing this service.
On the positive side, I think Senator McCaskill handled herself well and showed that she has more political smarts in her little finger than Russ Carnahan has in his entire body.
The meeting was noisy at times, with cheers and boos from various interest groups. She handled these eruptions without getting ruffled, and her calm demeanor caused the crowd to quickly quiet down. I only saw one serious incident in which two women violated the “no signs in the hall” rule and had to be escorted out by security people. McCaskill chastised these two and correctly predicted that they had set the tone for the national media reports about the meeting. She wisely asked the other attendees to please spread the word that the meeting was mostly calm and productive, with the two idiotic women being the exception.
I liked her statement about the carbon tax being bad for MO and the USA, even though I thought she showed foolishness by embracing the Gore religion.
I also liked her direct answer to the audience member who asked if she worries about losing her job as senator if she supports ObamaCare against voters’ wishes. She said she would vote according to what she thought was best for MO, regardless of her party’s position and the affect on her next election. We’ll see.
Unlike most politicians who dodge the question about whether they’ve read the healthcare bill, she said unequivocally that she had read the Senate version in its entirety. I think she meant the Democrat version, since she never mentioned any alternatives, such as Senator Coburn’s.
On the negative side, she dodged around lots of controversial issues by simply claiming that they don’t exist in the health bill. That was just obfuscation, and you could tell when she was doing it because she seemed a lot less confident.
Also, she made the typical hyperbolic statements that Democrats like to proclaim as “the true facts.” Among these were the bogus statistic that 47 million people are uninsured. She also introduced a new one (at least to my ears) that “the average family spends $12,500 per year for health insurance, and that is a serious financial strain.” In fact, the average family gets health insurance through their employer and spends very little out of pocket for health insurance or even for health care. True, if you are unemployed and have to pay for COBRA or other insurance, it will be a financial strain. That’s why we need to bring down insurance costs by adopting sensible reforms such as those in Senator Coburn’s bill, which is DOA in a Democrat-controlled Senate.
McCaskill didn’t even acknowledge that Coburn and others have proposed much simpler approaches, and she didn’t demonstrate any knowledge of the dire predictions from CBO and many think tanks about the effects of ObamaCare on our country’s future. She seems to have no concern about the huge deficits that Obama is racking up.
I could only conclude that she has not seriously considered any alternatives to the massive health industry overhaul currently being pushed by the White House. So, even though she presented herself as a rational and thoughtful senator, when it comes time to vote, she’ll only have one choice: ObamaCare. She’ll vote for it because she’s a Democrat, and she’ll rationalize her vote to us by claiming that the good outweighs the bad. Never mind that the entire approach – creating a major new entitlement – is unnecessary and could destroy our country.
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Thanks, PlasticEyes. You’ll be a refreshing change from that Hennessy guy.
This quote is patently false:
“In fact, the average family gets health insurance through their employer and spends very little out of pocket for health insurance or even for health care.”
There is no evidence to your claim. In fact, there’s a lot to the contrary. I’ve worked for several companies that are reputed to have among the best insurance out there, including USAA. But all these companies had deductibles of up to 2000 per person, so unless your family is completely healthy, there’s no way you won’t spend a significant sum on health care. I also had to pay 3000 a year out of my paycheck on top of deductibles.
Your claim is so ridiculous I don’t know where to begin. BTW: Even USAA’s leadership, which is extremely conservative, wants health care reform. They said as much in a company town hall a few years back.
Thanks for your reply.
Perhaps instead of “very little” I should have said “much less” in reference to McCaskill’s claim that the average family pays $12,500 per year. Your history seems to support my version, since your annual exposure is only $5,000. I assume that $3,000 is taken from your paycheck because your employer doesn’t pay the entire cost of your insurance, right?
When I retired from my large-company job, I looked into the COBRA rates and found that my cost for an equivalent family plan would be about $1,000 per month, which I understand is fairly typical for the excellent coverage my employer provided. (This may be where the Senator got her $12,500 number.) However, individual COBRA coverage for myself would cost only $400 per month, and I would only need it for about 10 months until I became eligible for Medicare. So, I moved the rest of my family to an HSA with a $5,000 deductible and a monthly premium around $200. When I joined Medicare, I purchased a Medicare supplement policy that provides excellent coverage at around $250 per month.
Now that my youngest child has moved out and my wife is less than 2 years from Medicare, I think our total health insurance outlay will settle in at less than $500 per month unless ObamaCare mucks it up. This is about what you would pay for nice car plus its insurance, so I don’t think it’s really out of line.
My point is that even after all these machinations, my out-of-pocket insurance cost has never come close to $12,500. Indeed, even if you compute my exposure due to the high-deductible HSA policy, it’s still less than McCaskill claimed was the family average. Both my story and your story debunk McCaskill’s claim, and I think millions of Americans have similar stories.
Of course, if you believe health care should be totally free, then I guess none of this means anything to you.
I was in Hillsboro at the rally. McCaskill dodged around issues, as you say, but I also noticed another interesting dodge. After being Obama’s poodle all through the campaign, it was fascinating to note that not one time–not once–did she mention Obama’s name. I also saw her interview with O’Reilly–same deal. At one point he asked her a question relating directly to Obama (sorry, don’t remember what it was); at that point, she dodged the question and answered the one she wanted to answer, again, not mentioning The One’s name.
I just thought it was an interesting omission, something worth keeping an eye on.