Senator fields health care querys
Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley answers questions at TVCC town hall meeting
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
LarryM@argusobserver.com
Sunday, September 6, 2009 1:40 AM PDT
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| Larry Meyer | Argus Observer
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley holds a town hall meeting Friday evening in the Weese Building at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario. |
ONTARIO —U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., listened to lectures and fielded questions during his first town hall meeting in Ontario, Friday.
The meeting, held at Treasure Valley Community College, focused on health care, as was expected, along with government spending and on how the government functions in general.
Merkley told the crowd of about 70 he would like the general public to have the same opportunity for health coverage as federal employees and members of Congress.
Merkley was slated to go back west on his tour of Eastern and central Oregon, after a swing across the northern tier of the state and down through Union and Baker counties before coming to Ontario.
The first-term senator faced a smaller audience at TVCC, compared to estimated crowds to 200 or more at earlier venues. Merkley and others attributed the numbers to competition from the first weekend of high school football games.
Some voters at the session were concerned about the amount of federal spending going on.
“We’re spending ourselves into oblivion,” Dennis Hall, Vale, told Merkley.
Jack Peterson, a rural Malheur County resident, also asked about government spending.
“One of my concerns is government spending. We can’t survive,” he said. “This spending is out of control.”
Merkley conceded spending was a major concern.
He also said, while the government has been putting out a lot of money to stimulate the economy, when the economy does improve, and more people are going back to work, the government will need to reverse the process. The need will be to steadily compress revenues and expenses closer together, he said.
“The problem is that the debt is eating up a significant portion of people’s income,” He said. “Interest is going out of the country (to places like China and Saudi Arabia).”
Renae Corn, Ontario, said one of her concerns about the health care bill was that end of life decisions were going to be made for the elderly and decisions would be made for families on how many children they could have.
“I strongly disagree with both,” Corn said.
“I agree with you completely,” Merkley replied.
He said the legislation in question was in support of living wills.
“I want the elderly to have control of their destiny,” he said.
Concerning health care, Merkley said the issue is how do you create the same opportunity for everyone. People who pay their own insurance or have insurance through a small company, pay more for their insurance than people who have insurance through large companies, he said.
One of Merkley’s proposals is to let the public have the same opportunities at coverage that federal employees have, where people would access an “exchange” — a range of insurance programs would be offered by a variety of companies. People could pick what works for them.
“There would be more competition,” he said.
The public option could either be good or bad, depending on how it’s written, he said.
Howard Heminger, Ontario, told Merkley that Congress is the problem.
“Health care is none of your business,” he said. “Do something about tort reform and malpractice.”
Health care costs are making the United States less competitive in the world economically, Merkley said.
While it may cost $1,500 per employee for health coverage, in Canada it would cost an employer zero.
Noting that Freightliner is moving jobs to Mexico, where there are less costs and Baker County could lose its Ash Grove plant, Merkley said, “If we don’t build things in America, we won’t have a middle class.”
Larry Meyer is a reporter for the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at LarryM@argusobserver.com. Check out more local news at www.argusobserver.com. Have an opinion on health care? Go online to www.argusobserver.com and check out our blogs.
Ray Dickerson wrote on Sep 8, 2009 5:02 PM:
The audience I observed was polite and much more civil than it should have been given the mess in which Senator Merkley is participating and his failure to address the questions asked. He failed to address the runaway spending by Congress, public funding of abortion, tort reform, the consequences of cap and trade legislation, death counseling, etc. and used spin on most other issues to avoid giving direct answers, including whether he would also use public healthcare should it become the law of the land.
Senator Merkley appeared to me to be terribly ill at ease, and was probably pleasantly surprised that he did not get booed. He and his cronies managed the audience in a manner similar to something out of old Moscow. His actions and answers to questions render him unsuitable to represent the citizens of Malheur County.
I don’t know what meeting Tara attended. "