Summary of Phone Health Care Town Hall of AZ Congressman Harry Mitchell

This blogger (who i found through a simple google search) has a fairly good summary of AZ Congressman Harry Mitchell's Phone Health Care Town Hall which took place last night:

1) He claims that the bill is “far from ready to be signed.” This I found odd. Why, then, are Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean running around claiming that the dang thing needs to be passed as soon as everybody gets back from their summer recess?

2) He was, in my opinion, kind of fuzzy on whether or not he supported a government option. He started to use the words “alternative option” and a red flag went up in my mind for doublespeak. Several people asked him about the government option. I didn’t end the call with hearing a clear enough answer from him on this issue. This concerns me.

3) He did say that he wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t promote heath care insurance competition. Again, this seems in direct conflict with the desires of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, et al. for a single-payer system. He also said that he wouldn’t sign a bill that increased the deficit. Given the current budget deficit, not sure how you do the latter and provide health care to an entire country.

4) He was not in favor of providing health care for illegal immigrants, although he wasn’t clear on how you stop illegal immigrants from using U.S. emergency rooms as their primary care physicians. This is a huge issue for those of us in Arizona.

5) He didn’t answer one woman’s question as to whether he would support government funded abortions through the health care bill.

6) Several times throughout the call, Harry stopped the questioning to take polls—e.g. “Are you happy with your current health care provider? Press 1 for yes; 2 for no.” I found this a bit hokey and would have rather he used the time to take an extra question or two.

It's a good summary with very little bias.