SEQUIM — Nearly 700 people packed the Sequim High School auditorium on Tuesday to rally for universal health care.
A group of Oregon doctors who call themselves “Mad as Hell Doctors” led a discussion that promoted the single-payer option for reform. The crowd largely agreed with the 10 panelists who led the 21âÑ2-hour event.
Questions to the panel were pre-screened, but the public was allowed to comment openly at the end of the evening rally. Most of the speakers were in favor of a universal plan. None supported the status quo.
The rally was sponsored by Reform Health Care Now, a coalition of North Olympic Peninsula citizens and activists.
The donation funded “Mad as Hell Doctors” group used the Sequim rally as a springboard for a 20-city tour to Washington, D.C., which begins in Seattle on Sept. 8.
“This is one heck of a crowd to do your first rehearsal for,” said Adam Klugman, master of ceremonies.
Klugman opened the event by musing on the difference between anger and rage in a call for civility.
“Anger is a healthy, productive feeling, but rage is very destructive,” he said.
The crowd never booed or spoke over the speakers.
Musician Bob Wickline and Klugman whipped the crowd into a “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” chant before the panelists gave one-minute responses to the question: Why are you mad as hell?
Why are you mad?
“People can’t afford to get reasonable insurance,” said Dr. Penny Burdick of Sequim, who volunteered to join the panel after someone pointed out that there were no women on it.
“Many insurance companies don’t cover preventative medicine . . . I can’t stand seven-minute office visits where I can’t help anybody.”
Panelist Joseph Eusterman, a retired internal medicine physician from Portland, said he was angry at the fear mongering over the single-payer, or universal, option.
“We don’t need any more fear in this country — it’s been going on long enough,” Eusterman said. “I’m mad as hell about all the fear mongering.”
Dr. Robert Seward, an internal medicine physician from Portland, said people are going bankrupt trying to pay their medical bills, which doesn’t happen in other developed nations.
“I think that is intolerable and an outrage,” Seward said. “Millions of Americans aren’t getting basic health care.”
Dr. Paul Hochfeld, emergency room physician in Corvallis, Ore., showed a 15-minute clip of his film “Health, Money and Fear.”
He asked everyone in the audience to raise their hand if they think the current system is broken.
Nearly every hand went up.
“That was a trick question,” Hochfeld said. “We don’t have a health care system.”
Congress manipulated
He said Congress is being manipulated by the insurance and drug companies to the detriment of the public.
Dr. Tom Locke, health care officer for Clallam and Jefferson county, argued for the public option in a staged debate with Hochfeld.
Locke said proponents of a public option see it as a first step to a single-payer option. He said a public option in 2009 may be the best that political realists can hope for.
“The partisan rancor in Washington, D.C., is at an absolute all-time high,” Locke said.
U.S. Rep Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, will hold a town hall meeting on health care reform in the Fort Worden State Park Commons in Port Townsend on Monday from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
