Lila Jordan, a 43-year-old resident of south Greensboro, passed a bullhorn among a dozen or so demonstrators on Green Valley Road outside of Sen. Kay Hagan’s office who gave testimonies about the perils of getting sick without health insurance, escalating healthcare costs in family budgets and what they view as the moral imperative to provide healthcare to all Americans.
When it came time for Jordan to give her own story her voice choked up and tears streamed down her cheeks.
Later, she led about 30 proponents of the so-called “public option” up to Hagan’s suite, where they waited for a contingent representing the opposite side of the issue to voice their position to one of the senator’s aides.
Jordan said she attended a MoveOn.org training session in late July, and was instructed to form a committee. She hasn’t managed to do that yet, so she organized the Oct. 15 rally as a one-person committee.
“I actually didn’t have healthcare for two and a half years,” she said. “I was unemployed. I ended up receiving four bills for one visit. I have friends who are unemployed or selfemployed who can’t afford insurance. In my neighborhood, there are so many people who don’t have insurance, not to mention college students.”
Jordan recalled that in the summer of 2008 she underwent medical testing for what she called “a female procedure” while she was unemployed and without insurance. She received a bill from the facility where the test was conducted, one from the primary-care physician, one from the lab where the sample was examined and one from the physician who read the results. Fortunately, the test came back negative, but Jordan paid the bills out of pocket. By the time it was over she had spent $700 or $800.
In the corridor outside of Hagan’s office, Jordan passed Valerie White, an Asheboro resident who is president of the NC
Federation of Republican Women,
whose group had already delivered
their message, which was equally succinct
and exactly opposite: “No public
option.”
White said her contingent included
30-45 people, many of whom had left
by the time the MoveOn.org demonstrators
arrived.
“We need to focus on the ones that
don’t have insurance and leave the rest
of us alone,” White said.
White said that as an alternative
the federal government could provide
vouchers to the uninsured to purchase
policies, and that she favored lifting
restrictions on health insurance companies
so that they could operate across
state lines, thereby reducing costs and
increasing competition.”
White said she favored a more
focused approach to covering the uninsured.
“I think we need to figure out who
we’re talking about,” she said. “When
we talk about the uninsured, is it those
that shouldn’t be in the country, those
that don’t want it, or those that flat-out
can’t afford it?”
Notwithstanding the arguments of
MoveOn.org and those it represents
that the public option is a compromise
designed to close the coverage gap,
White said, “What you have there is a
lack of competition. A government-paid
insurance program is going to put everybody
else out of business. What business
is going to pay private insurance if they
can move their employees
onto the government program?”
For liberal proponents
of healthcare reform
monitoring the legislative
process as a
handful of bills work
their way through
committee and elected
representatives begin
the Herculean task of
reconciling a jumble of
political imperatives, the
“public option” remains at
the heart of their hopes.
“I think they’re gaining
momentum and getting support
for the public option,” Jordan
said, “even from some of the Democrats
that were on the fence.”
In response to the MoveOn.org rally, a
Hagan staffer forwarded a statement made
by the senator two days earlier applauding
a recent healthcare reform bill passed
by the Senate Finance Committee. The
bill, in Hagan’s words, “prevents insurance
companies from turning you away
due to a preexisting condition, removes
annual and lifetime caps on coverage, and
removes co-pays for preventive services.”
The bill approved by the Finance
Committee does not include a provision
for the public option.
Hagan’s deputy press secretary, Sadie
Weiner, noted that Hagan voted in favor
of a Community Health Insurance Option
in an earlier bill that passed the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee, on which she serves with
fellow North Carolina Senator
Richard Burr.
Weiner
described the Community
Health Insurance Option
as “a backstop option for
people without access
to employer-sponsored
healthcare.”
The Rev. Jean
Rodenbough, president
of the left-leaning NC
Council of Churches, said
healthcare reform is a major
focus of her organization at
this time.
“Personally, I am for universal,
single-payer healthcare,” she said
during the rally. “Because that is
not going to be on the books yet,
the public option is a requirement and a
necessity.”
Hagan’s formal statement of Oct. 13
added that she was committed to a final
bill “that slows down the skyrocketing
cost of healthcare and prevents families
from sinking into bankruptcy as a result
of one medical emergency.”
Many of the MoveOn.org demonstrators
nodded knowingly when Melvina
Ray Davis, 55, of Greensboro, said she
pays more for a health insurance policy
to cover her retired husband now than
she did to cover her entire family several
years ago. She added that she has two
college-educated daughters, neither of
whom is insured.
“My daughter rides a bicycle to work
every day,” Davis said. “I worry every
day that if she gets hit, our family will be
bankrupted.” !
Opponents of the public option meet with an aide to Sen. Kay Hagan (left) at the senator’s Greensboro office on Oct. 15. (photo by Jordan Green)
