Yesterday morning, I visited the Bloomingdale office of Congressman Roskam with other constituents of the 6th district, organized by Siobhan and leaders of faith-based organizations from the area. We had a simple message to give: Your constituents want healthcare reform with a public option! Roskam welcomed us and offered bottled water and began by saying our current healthcare system is not working and he agrees that we need reform. He said that we probably agree about more than we think.
We introduced ourselves and explained what brought us to his office. Each of our group of 16 had a unique reason for being there and I was touched by their stories.
Sally was denied coverage for her family after treating her daughter’s depression, because that depression became a pre-existing condition.
Laura’s father was also denied coverage after doctors thought he had a heart attack. They later diagnosed it as just heart palpitations, but the heart attack had already been documented and became a pre-existing condition.
Linda and Herb have seen their family destroyed by bankruptcy because they could not afford healthcare when they needed it most.
After 20 years managing litigation for an insurance company, Brian recently lost his health insurance after being forced into early retirement. The COBRA has run out and he has bladder cancer, likely caused by Agent Orange that he was exposed to as a soldier in Vietnam. He is not eligible for VA programs because he did not register for benefits during the window he was eligible. His wife, Diane, is eligible for the state program, but cannot afford the premiums.
These were just a few of the stories we shared, briefly, with our Congressman. Our faith-based group leaders added that health for all is Christian. How, as Christians, can we let anyone go sick? Additionally, Frank approached Roskam as a fiscal conservative and discussed the profiteering of the American health industry.
Roskam listened, but did not take notes, nor did the staffer who joined us. He asked a few questions to clarify, but waited for each of us to present our case before responding to the group. He talked about cutting some of the administrative waste within the system and making insurance more accessible, but did not talk specifically about how he plans to do that. He used the Congressional report from Peter Ozag, OMB Director, to defend his position against the public option, citing the $1.5 trillion cost of HR 3200, which is now essentially off the table. He compared President Obama’s goal of being the last President to deal with healthcare to President Bush’s immigration proposals, claiming that both issues will require work for years to come.
Roskam used our stories to refute our requests. He used the problem Brian had with the VA system as an example of the problems of a system run by our government. He cited Diane as being part of the 10 million people without insurance, but did not acknowledge the other 35 million we know are uninsured. He used our lack of time as an excuse to avoid details and made a joke that one of our group members was long-winded. He was the only one who found it funny.
While most of us knew where he stood before we went into his office, Roskam’s demeanor surprised me. He completely lacked any compassion, and he would sigh and readjust in his chair when we made a defense of the public option. While many of us support single-payer, we tried to avoid discussing it as we did not want the meeting to become about his opposition to it. He took each opportunity he could to bring up single-payer and he attempted to refute small details of our arguments rather than addressing the big picture. He asked us to follow up when we talked about 65% of the public supporting a public option. (CBS/NY Times Poll 9/25/09) He repeatedly mentioned that he had been informed it would only be five people, even though Siobhan gave his staff a list of thirteen people the week prior.
Despite Roskam’s reactions, I came away from the meeting feeling empowered. We did our job as citizens by sharing our thoughts, ideas and stories with our representation. I hope that we can find a credible candidate to stand up to Roskam on our behalf soon, but in the meantime, we must continue to represent ourselves. Again and again.
