{"id":595,"date":"2009-05-27T23:07:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T03:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=595"},"modified":"2009-05-27T23:07:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-28T03:07:00","slug":"missoulian-single-payer-mentions-draw-cheers-at-baucus-sponsored-health-care-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=595","title":{"rendered":"Missoulian: Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Missoulian: Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The hearing ranged broadly over the possibilities for reform, but what clearly resonated for McArthur was something Baucus’ chief of staff, Jon Selib, said a couple of times.<\/p>\n

Discussing why a single-payer system of health insurance wasn’t viable, Selib made reference to the more than 150 million Americans who are covered by some sort of employer-provided health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people like that,\u201d Selib said.<\/p>\n

When the time came for questions, McArthur stood up and asked a simple question. Looking across a standing-room-only crowd of about 275, he asked how many were happy with their employer-based health insurance.Less than 10 people raised their hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number is bogus,\u201d McArthur said. \u201cIt’s not working for 95 percent of us.\u201d McArthur drew resounding applause.<\/p>\n

In fact, any mention of single-payer health care insurance brought raucous cheers and clapping.<\/p>\n

Any other solution to health care reform – including Baucus’ \u201cbalanced\u201d plan that would create a mix of public and private plans – was received more coolly.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s session was one of a handful of events Baucus is sponsoring around the state this week. He chairs the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee, and is the point man on health care reform.<\/p>\n

He did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, but Selib did, and he heard what the senator himself has heard since he announced that single-payer wasn’t really on the table.<\/p>\n

As Selib worked to massage that point, one man barked out, \u201cOh bull—-.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tom Roberts, president of the Western Montana Clinic and moderator at the session, asked the crowd to be civil, but the man had made his point.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missoulian: Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk The hearing ranged broadly over the possibilities for reform, but what clearly resonated for McArthur was something Baucus’ chief of … Continue reading “Missoulian: Single-payer mentions draw cheers at Baucus-sponsored health care talk”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-private-health-insurance","category-public-opinion","category-single-payer-health-care"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}