Into the Lion's Den

The other night, I attended a town hall meeting by my Congressional representative to discuss the health reform bill currently in Congress. Actually, I tried to attend the meeting, but it was full up long before I got there. Instead, I found myself on the lawn outside the meeting place, where the man hoping to defeat my rep in 2010 set up a campaign rally. The usual crowd of teabaggers (holding signs like "GOVT. HEALTHCARE HOTLINE / 1-800-YOU'RE-DEAD!"), pro-lifers (with their requisite gory photos of aborted fetuses) and Lyndon LaRouche disciples (sporting posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache) was very much in attendance.

The general atmosphere was like something out of another dimension, where up is down, black is white, and an effort to make sure everyone can get the health care they need is actually a plot to destroy America.

Person after person railed to me against "socialism," "death books," "Marxism" and other canards, citing the paranoid ravings of Glenn Beck as if they were holy gospel.

"Have you read the bill?" I was asked over and over, and my response of "yes, have you?" flummoxed them. Such people apparently believe that their refusal to read the bill for themselves means that no one else will read it either, and so they're caught unprepared when talking with someone who actually took the time and effort to debunk the scare stories.

People carried signs denouncing the bill as "unconstitutional" and demanding its supporters be tried for treason. They have evidently never read Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which clearly gives Congress the power to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." One would think that health care definitely belongs in the category of "general Welfare."

And then there were the arguments over the "death panels." I argued myself blue in the face that there are no death panels and that it's all a monstrous lie. I explained the actual purpose of the attacked section - namely, if you choose to discuss a living will and/or other advance care planning with your doctor, Medicare will cover the cost of the consultation - and it made no difference whatsoever.

Same thing with the Veterans Administration's supposed "death book," Your Life, Your Choices, whose actual purpose is to educate veterans about advance care planning. People had already made up their minds, and no amount of facts was going to change them.

When people over 65 denounced "government run health care" and I mentioned a little something called Medicare, they didn't even slow down. When they fulminated against "socialism" and I asked if they receive Social Security, they accused me of twisting their words against them.

But the absolute low point was a woman in a wheelchair shakily taking the microphone to say that as a "cripple" she was on the list of "disposable" people who would not receive care. The crowd replied with a mixture of cheers (for her) and boos (for Obama and anyone else who supports the bill).

"That's not true!" I blurted out, only to be shouted down.

The thought of someone deliberately twisting that woman's mind with fear and terror into believing something no sane person would ever suggest is simply obscene. And the realization that far too many Americans wholeheartedly believe it as well makes me despair for our nation.