Overall
The room was too small for the 150, mostly elderly on socialized medicine called Medicare. Someone in the crowd had to remind the young conservative men (50 years or less) to give up their seats to the elderly standing in the room. Only a few stood up. The crowd was clearly pro insurance companies. They didn't have a problem when one of their own would ask a question, but demanded others to "shut up" when they did the same. A small vocal pro-health care crowd stood their ground and raised some embarrassing issues for Olson.
DisrespectOlson on many times claimed we were all "Texans" and as such should show each other respect, and then he let in a lady with a large red sign in the front of the room comparing pro-health care advocates to communists. Olson continued his lack of respect:
Rahm Emanuel
Olson talked about his heart problem and fainting in the health spa provided by taxpayers. He made it a point, with strategic pauses, to say that the first person who was at his side to help him was Rahm Emanuel. He didn't say anything like "Even though we do not agree on many issues, he put that aside to help me and I am grateful". Instead he said it to get a negative rise out of the audience and they were glad to give it to him. Real classless.
Olson's tax funded health care.
Olson has a pre-existing condition, but since he has accepted the public option called "Federal employees health benefits" paid by tax dollars, he is covered. He has been on tax funded health care all his adult life, serving in the Navy, as a staff member to Phil Gramm, and as a Congressman. Tax payers pick up 72% of his premiums for him and his family, as well as for 2 million federal employees.
Getting punked
Olson tried to use the horrible illness of one of his constituents for political gain and it backfired. In the end Olson unknowingly was supporting the public option and stating how his free market system had failed his constituent. Watch the video.
His free market
Olson was asked a few "canned" questions from the glenn beck audience but got snagged on the tough ones. He was asked why if his free market insurance system was working so well, why are we here. Olson stumbled on the answer, then went into the same old arguments of letting the free market work (it hasn't) and good old tort reform. Tort reform was to have lowered health care costs in Texas. It hasn't worked. Medical malpractice costs are just .5% of the cost of health care, but the audience wasn't interested in facts.
Fat people
In one of the more funny moments, Olson stated that we must become a more healthy nation, one that rewards people for staying healthy. It was almost funny when all the fat people started clapping. It reminded me of NAAFP on family guy.
Conclusion
Olson is a strange person. He is hard to respect when he talks about being respectful but then acts like a classless rookie. The town hall meeting was nothing more than a republican love fest, as predicted. Most in the crowd was worried about their own public health care, Medicare, and Olson continued to scare them with false claims that Medicare is going broke and will be cut.
Was it a waste of time? Yes. He is not interested in anything close to bipartisanship or anything but to protect the insurance industry, the very one he doesn't even pay for.
9 comments:
Olson continued to scare them with false claims that Medicare is going broke and will be cut.
You don't think Medicare is going broke? The Federal government will spend almost two trillion dollars more than it takes in this year.
Olson looks sick. Way too thin.
(Maybe he has been sucking on the tit of the government too long?)
Oh...he sort of looks like skeletor.
http://yepyep.gibbs12.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/skeletor3.jpg
The costs are rising both for Medicare and insurance companies. But, Medicare has 4% overhead and insurance companies 30%.
We need to get all healthcare costs under control and the way to do it is to quit giving health insurers such a huge cut when they are a middle man, not providing health care.
Medicare can be fixed. You better believe all folks over 65 are happy to have it and do not want it to go away. If you want to refuse it for yourself and your aging relatives, that is fine with me! Please, go ahead and do that. Will go towards saving costs for the rest of us.
NAAFP. They were all at the Olson mtg?
Olson looks sick. Way too thin.
The aspect ratio on that photo is off, which is why it's squished horizontally.
Predictably, John's photographs, like his writing and his thoughts, are distortions of reality.
Olson is a liar, but he is a Republican, so we shouldn't be surprised.
But let us give the GOP credit - they are VERY good at finding voters who cannot, for whatever reason, understand what is in their own self interest. The idea of seniors at these town hall meetings protesting "socialized medicine", while having a Medicare care in their wallets and receiving health care paid for by the rest of us, just baffles me.
And the use of the infant who needed heart surgery was just crass political opportunism. The facts of the case clearly argued against his point - but apparently Olson and many of his supporters - are too dumb to grasp reality.
God help us - if these people are the ones making decisions on health care policy, we are all screwed.
If you haven't see Olson up front, you haven't seen how thin he is. Eyes are sunken. He really is thin. Unhealthy looking. I didnt change the aspect of the camera. Don't have a need and didnt know how anyway.
His eyes bug out a bit especially when he is confronted with facts.
I didnt change the aspect of the camera.
Really? Your camera natively takes photos in 320 x 391? I doubt that.
and didnt know how anyway.
Now that's perfectly believable.
I think voting for Tom, Nick or Pete is a waste of your time or most congressional types. Pete's office in Sugar Land is in the Freed Marketing building and I'm sure he gets his orders from their client list of wealthy developers, investors and those that also supported Tom and Nick. The message is always one of fear and intimidation.
I'm tired of the soccer match. The public needs to wake-up and dump both sold out parties. Our choice between a corporate cartel and a government monopoly isn't a choice at all.
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