Tip of the hat to Lew Finfer for the tip off on this 8/3 WaPo campaign trail story … Confession: I’m on vacation with my wife in Utah, so all matters Romney have a special poignancy for me now:
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Mitt Romney was about a minute into an answer about his commitment to fighting the global spread of AIDS and health care diplomacy on Wednesday when a waitress behind the counter yelled out a question.
“What about our nation? How ’bout the USA? C’mon!” yelled Michele Griffin, a 12-year veteran behind the counter at one of Manchester’s most famous eating establishments. She turned to walk away, but the former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate called her back, sparking an emotional and confrontational 10-minute exchange about health care and the needs of the working class. The already hot diner got even hotter fast. The exchange took place at the Red Arrow, one of two diners the Washington Post will be visiting repeatedly during the next six months.
“One of the things I’m proud of doing in my state is putting on track a plan that gets everybody health insurance,” Romney began, seeing an opening for his standard stump speech about his efforts as governor of Massachusetts.
But Griffin was in no mood for platitudes, and interrupted. “After we pay our huge deductibles for our insurance and our cost for our prescriptions, there’s nothing left,” she said.
“Are you a Massachusetts resident?” Romney asked.
“No I’m a New Hampshire resident,” Griffin said, and then added, before Romney could jump in, that “we pay over $1,000 a month for our insurance. Then we have co pays. Every time you go to the doctor, it’s $50 a visit. Then you have co-pays for our prescriptions. Can you tell me what your co pay is?”
“Yes,” Romney said. “$10 for each prescription.”
“That’s very nice isn’t it?” Griffin answered dryly.
“Yes. What are yours?” Romney asked.
“Mine are like $30-$50. I have three sick children.”
A moment later, Romney tried to get back to Massachusetts and his stump speech. “One of the things I thing is important to do–as you’ve heard me do as governor across the border–is to find a way to get health insurance for all our citizens…”
Griffin interrupted again. “Yeah, but how are all your citizens…”
“You know,” Romney quipped, “if you’d like me to answer the question I will.”
“Well,” Griffin said, “but how much are your citizens paying for deductibles? Same as you?”
“Well, how much?” Romney stumbled for a moment, then got his footing as he used the question to launch into an explanation of the need for choice in health care. “Everyone has their own plan. Because in my state there is private insurance and we get to choose the policy we’d like.”
The pair quibbled for a few more minutes as a small crowd of diner patrons, reporters and Romney aides listened in the cramped, little diner. At one point, Griffin criticized Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying that as First Lady “she had a plan and she never followed through. Now, she wants to be president.” Romney was quick to say he didn’t like Clinton’s plan and opposed taxes to pay for health care subsidies, but that prompted a question from another patron. “Who’s paying for the subsidies if it’s not the government of Massachusetts?”
Another chance to pull out the script: “We found it cost us more money to be giving free care out at hospitals than to help people buy their own private care,” Romney said, sweating a bit by this point. A couple of other questions – another on AIDS, one on education – and he was, mercifully, out of the diner. Aides looked relieved, but said they were always happy to have tough questions. Meanwhile, a tearful Griffin said after he left that she heard nothing to make her feel better about her plight or the health care situation for working class people. She said one of her daughters has Crohn’s disease and another is a diabetic. “I just want him to start taking care of us Americans,” she said. “You know? Stop worrying about everyone else right now.”
Romney is not the first candidate to hear of Griffin’s plight. Griffin described her situation to Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, a Democrat, when he was last in the diner, according to Joe Klein of Time Magazine. Biden touched his forehead to hers, Klein wrote, “an awkward but touching gesture, and she shuddered into deep sobs. He hugged her.”
– Michael D. Shear
Addendum: You can watch the whole exchange here (following a commercial):
There are currently 48 million Americans without health insurance, a large number of whom are children. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program, enacted a decade ago – intended to help kids whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but who have neither employer-paid insurance nor private health care policies – is now up for renewal.
The House legislation, the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection or CHAMP Act, was passed along party lines Aug. 6 with a vote of 225-204. It authorizes an additional $50 billion in health care coverage over five years, benefiting 6 million children currently covered by SCHIP and an additional 5 million additional low-income children who are eligible but not receiving care due to funding shortfalls. The Senate passed a less expansive $35 billion, but President is threatening to veto the bill, saying it is too costly.
SCHIP actually costs less than $3.50 per day per child and provides preventive care that often reduces the need for emergency room care. The CHAMP Act is a public-private, state-federal partnership that gives states flexibility to deliver services that fit the needs of that state’s residents.
Please write Congress and tell them to override a possible presidential veto – visit http://www.acorn.org to send e-mails to both House and Senate.
The Mass. law is fake reform, for the most part. It continues the obscene waste and harm in the non-system and fails to set standards for how our healthcare dollars are spent. Shame on us.
To learn about healthcare reform that puts ordinary people’s needs ahead of corporate profits please contact me at ann@defendhealth.org and visit http://www.defendhealth.org
and
http://www.MassCare.org/legislation
If Mitt’s so proud of his work on Massachusetts health insurance, why did he veto it?
Visiting Lemuel Shattuck Hospital Geriatric Care Services
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Available directions to hospital location are not adequate
for many people.
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Rodent droppings.
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Human waste.
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Retributive behavior toward bed confined patients from personnel
not wanting to handle patients’ bedpans and urine containers.
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Human waste unattended to for hours.
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And soaked bed linens.
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Unsanitary conditions for food result in patients getting worms.
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Handwashing needs to be attended to more diligently.
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Lack of easily accessible handwashing stations.
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Unsanitary dirt and dust in ventilating grill of window air conditioners.
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Automobile outside the hospital entrance with booming loudspeakers
that vibrated the building and vibrated windows for hours at a
deafening level.
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A wall of tobacco smoke from more than twenty tobacco smokers at the
hospital entrance blocking people entering and leaving causing asthma
respiratory reactions in hospital visitors.
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There are no telephones for patients that cannot get out of bed.