Our elected representatives have refused to meet with us, so we decided to hold our own health care town hall. We invited Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Captito and Representative David McKinley (WV-01). Manchin accepted our offer but the other two were too scared busy*.
Executive summary of Manchin’s comments:
- He is absolutely opposed to repeal of the ACA. Pre-existing conditions, no lifetime cap on benefits, and keeping kids on parents’ policies until 26 are all things he mentioned as being wonderful.
- The ACA has problems in the private sector market, but they are fixable. The Republicans in Congress have no interest in working on them.
- Manchin told Trump that he is being taken for a ride. The Congressional Republicans want to fulfill their promise to repeal the ACA, but they know that when they do all hell will break loose. So they are planning to delay implementation until after the 2018 elections.
- Manchin has been opposed to medical marijuana (one of two comments he was booed for). He had gotten the same response at two other town halls and is open to learning more about it. (As president of MFP I will write him a letter documenting the evidence in favor of MM). He still remains opposed to recreational marijuana.
- He is antiabortion but is supportive of Planned Parenthood as long as the Hyde Amendment guarantees that no Federal money goes to abortion. He admitted that his vote against PP after the bogus videos was a mistake, and acknowledged that the perpetrators were being prosecuted. (Planned Parenthood WV told me that they consider Manchin to be an ally. He has a strong history of support for women’s health issues.)
- He refused to say whether he would vote for Gorsuch. He has a meeting scheduled this week and will discuss some problematic issues before making up his mind.
- He defended his votes for some of Trump’s nominees by saying that he did it so that McConnell would not damage the Senate by invoking the nuclear option. This was the other time he was booed.
The town hall was organized by three members of Mountaineers for Progress: Micah Wedlinski, Shane Assadzandi, and Megan Smith. Six organizations co-sponsored the event: Mountaineers for Progress, Organizing for Action, Morgantown NOW, Planned Parenthood, West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, Progress Starts Now WV (formerly known as PantSuit Nation), and Resist WV. Funding to rent the facility came from OFA (with some additional money from Micah).
Over 400 people had said they were going on our Facebook page, so we had reserved a room that seated 600. There was some nervousness leading up to the event, which was scheduled for 3:30, since the WVU men’s basketball team was playing that afternoon. Luckily they took care of business and won at about 2:30, and by 3 people were starting to stream in. It wasn’t just Morgantown folks; there were people from all over northern West Virginia. It wasn’t quite standing room only, but it was close. We had local media, CNN, AP, and the Suddeutsche Zeitung from Munich. We also live-streamed it to our Facebook page.
Micah opened the show (8:00) and introduced the moderator, Elizabeth Opyoke (11:25). Elizabeth is a well known progressive and also a Manchin family friend, so she was an excellent choice. Before Manchin took questions, we had five excellent speakers. The first three (Nina Schultz, Emily Thompson, and Maryann Claytor) shared healthcare stories where the ACA had helped them tremendously. The fourth (WVU Political Science professor Simon Haeder) gave a wonkish summary of healthcare policy. When he described the portion of Trumpcare forcing victims of domestic violence to file joint tax returns with their abusers the crown was stunned (31:40). The last, Dr. Erika Pallie, is a family practice physician specializing in substance abuse. She described the devastation Trumpcare would unleash upon families battling drug addiction.
Manchin started out by telling us how much good the ACA has done and how insane it is that the Republicans are trying to repeal it. The crowd had red and green signs and there was plenty of green during those remarks.
The last hour or so was devoted to questions from the audience. Aside from MM and Gorsuch his answers were generally acceptable to most of us. There was still a long line at the end, but we had to vacate the hall. We collected the unanswered questions on notecards and will send them to his staff so that they can reply individually.
The crowd behaved well. There was no heckling of any of the speakers. We had been warned that a concealed carry group was going to show up, but we didn’t see any of them. They had had a few people at the earlier town halls and had gotten no traction.
After the meeting Manchin stayed for half an hour to mix with the crowd. Everyone I talked to said that the event had gone very well. The only exception would have been the AP reporter, who had said that he wouldn’t file a story unless there was a big fight.
* To be fair to McKinley, he held a small meeting earlier in the week to discuss health care (bottom line: he’s voting for Trumpcare even though it screws WV).