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CEDAR RAPIDS — Greeted by a chorus of cheers as well as a few jeers at a community clinic re-opening here Monday, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin told audience members that “the status quo is unacceptable,” and “delay and postponement is not an option” on health care reform.
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin took time during the re-opening ceremonies for a Cedar Rapids community clinic to discuss health care reform efforts in Congress.
“There is just a lot of misinformation out there, and you’ve just got to cut through that clutter,” Harkin said, while one man near the back of the crowd was taken aside by law enforcement for a conversation about inappropriate behavior. Although no charges were brought against the vocal and disenchanted man, who was threatening to hit another audience member that had taken his photograph, the officers successfully diffused an escalating situation.
The few disruptions, mostly in the form of yelling, had more of an impact on audience members than they had on Harkin, who simply continued to speak despite the noise. In fact, Harkin spent only a few moments at the beginning of his public comments to address the ongoing controversy of reports of a few out-spoken individuals disrupting congressional events involving health care reform across the country.
“As we have seen in recent days, there’s a lot of effort, I think, opponents are pulling out all stops to kill our reform bill,” Harkin said, acknowledging a highly vocal minority of the audience that exploded with shouts and applause.
The crowd of roughly 200 people that greeted U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in Cedar Rapids on Monday was primarily comprised of individuals supportive of government health care reform.
“Calm down,” Harkin responded. “I said half-jokingly earlier that I think people are learning bad habits from television. It seems like every time you turn on your TV, someone is shouting at somebody. And on all of these talk shows they interrupt you. I’ve got to tell you, that’s why I don’t go on them. … I figure, let someone have their say, and if there is a question, let’s deal with it in a very civil and straight-forward manner.”
Harkin added that he doesn’t “lump everyone into one big ball of wax,” and believes that people come to the forums and town hall meetings hosted by members of Congress mostly for legitimate reasons — to gather information or learn more about possible reform. There are only very few, he said, who simply want to shut down discussion so that nothing gets accomplished.
Following his public comments, Harkin said that he has already heard concerns and comments about health care reform during his Iowa meetings that he will take back with him to Washington.
One reason for Harkin's visit was to participate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Linn Community Care, a community health clinic heavily impacted by the June 2008 floods. The clinic has received more than $500,000 from the federal stimulus package to rebuild and is slated to receive roughly $250,000 more in the coming weeks, according to Harkin.
“I’ve had questions asked by people that I want to go back and get some better answers to,” Harkin told The Iowa Independent. “For instance, this morning in Waterloo a woman wanted to know what we were going to do to stop fraud and abuse … As I was driving down the road from Waterloo to here, I read and thought some more about that, and now I’m wondering if an amendment on the floor of the Senate might really be in order to tighten down more on that.”
Harkin admitted that comments and concerns from Iowans can still impact him on the particulars of the bill, but not on the primary goal.
“I can be swayed on a lot of things,” he said, “but I can’t be swayed on doing nothing. I will not be swayed on sticking with the status quo. But, yeah, there are a lot of other things I’ll be more than willing to take a look at.
“As I said, this isn’t the Ten Commandments. We aren’t chiseling in stone. This is a law, a bill. Obviously, it will change as times change and conditions change. We just have to do the best we can do right now to cover as many people; have stable costs, stable coverage, and stable quality; and put a huge emphasis on prevention and wellness.”
The complete audio file of Harkin’s public remarks and the question-and-answer session is available.
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