An OK Corral in Clovis?

A health care town hall at Clovis East High School — will you walk away wiser, will your ears be burning, will you be in a fistfight?

That’s the sad soap opera being played out in so many health forums around the county as the possibility of covering 47 million uninsured people congeals under the rubric of national health insurance reform.

Convened by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, who represents Clovis (including Clovis Community Medical Center) and sizable chunks of the south Valley, more than 200 people spent more than 2 hours August 20 gleaning and venting about selected details of H.R. 3200, the House Democrats’ current version of health reform. (Details of the bill at http://nunes.house.gov/_files/Healthlegtext.pdf ) The Senate has yet to produce a bill.

The House bill is by no means to Nunes’ liking, nor to the liking of most in attendance at the meeting, judging by comments, verbal jabs and applause. Republican Nunes’ own proposal, H.R. 2520, The Patients’ Choice Act, is going nowhere. (Details of the bill at http://nunes.house.gov/_files/HR2520.pdf )

Two Nunes’ staffers delivered assessments of the 1,100-page Dem document. The vernacular was familiar: government-run health insurance; rationing; stifling innovation; a recipe book created by bureaucrats; developed in secret White House meetings involving pharmaceutical and insurance giants; and, judging by what government has already wrought, shouldn’t it fix the messes of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid before creating a new behemoth?

The handful who disagreed, that things are so bad that change is needed, drew a smattering of boos and brandings as “Democrat” from the audience. But there was consensus in the crowd, most of whom stayed in the warm room till the session ended, that the care America relies on is too costly, too convoluted to understand and access and doomed to bankruptcy.

Doctors, nurses, hospital executives, insurance brokers, farmers, retirees, a mom with two kids in a stroller, social activists — by no means an unruly group, nor one without many good intentions. But there was clear anxiety about H.R. 3200 — with regard to people paying more, losing the coverage they currently have, dismantling the already frayed safety net and the significant vagaries in the legislation.

Said Nunes: I want to empower the individual. For the Valley, the more we rely on Washington and Sacramento, the worse it is for the Valley. Another voice from the audience: Why should we be forced to pay to keep someone else alive? People have the right to success and the right to fail but not the right to take from me.

Trillions of dollars, trillions of words of legalese. Always worth learning and listening more. Look forward to the day when some dictionary lists the term “status quo” as archaic.