U.S. Sen. Isakson Fails to Connect at Town Hall Meeting
(APN) MARIETTA — On Monday, August 14, 2017, U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) hosted a Town Hall Meeting to answer constituents’ questions.
Progressive activists nationwide and in Georgia have struggled to get meetings with Republican elected officials, in a political environment characterized by division and turmoil.
Constituents thanked U.S. Sen. Isakson numerous times for holding the meeting because many other elected officials have refused to hold any.
“A lot of your colleagues don’t have the guts to talk with us,” one man said.
Over 600 people packed the Bobbie Bailey Auditorium at Kennesaw State University while an overflow crowd was turned away.
U.S. Sen. Isakson started off my condemning the recent attacks against minorities and peaceful protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), neo-Nazis, and White supremacists. This drew a standing ovation, with cheers of approval from the audience.
The first question come from a woman who inquired about U.S. Sen. Isakson’s July 2017 promise to never knowingly vote to cut disability benefits. Despite this promise, Isakson voted for the U.S. Senate health care bills that would cut over 770 billion dollars from Medicaid, harming thousands of Georgians with disabilities.
“Going forward can you reassure us that you will not vote for any bill that would cut Medicaid?”
“I had to make the votes I made to get the bill to the Conference Committee,” Isakson said to loud boos from the audience.
People shouted out such things as: “We want your healthcare,” “We want single payer,” and “You had seven years and did not come up with anything.”
Other people spoke about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has helped them and how they want it fixed and expanded, not repealed and replaced.
One woman explained that insurance companies are money making machines that are beholden to their shareholders, not to poor and unhealthy people.
“Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists need to be in charge of healthcare, not paper pushing actuaries in an office building,” she said.
U.S. Sen. Isakson accused the press of not telling how he is helping health care by signing the Collins Cassidy health care bill.
http://familiesusa.org/product/cassidycollins-aca-replacement-proposal-falls-far-short
“Would you support a single payer system that allows everyone to get the healthcare they need?” a man asked.
The audience rose and chanted “Single Payer! Single Payer!”
“I have a responsibility to make health care as affordable and accessible to every citizen who wants it,” Isakson replied. While no one disagreed, this did not seem to answer the question.
A member of Mothers for Black Boys Unites for Social Change asked the Senator if he would support law enforcement taking classes on de-escalating violence toward Black youth.
“I want to see my son grow up and live his life safely and I’m terrified for him,” the woman said.
Isakson responded that “parental deficit disorder” is the problem and received loud boos from the crowd.
The audience shouted “Black Lives Matter!” and he responded, “All lives matter!” to more boos.
This shows U.S. Sen. Isakson appears to be out of touch with what Black people in Georgia and across the nation are experiencing and talking about when they express fears about law enforcement killing their children.
Another constituent wanted to know if Isakson would show leadership and break ranks with Republican colleagues to oppose the actions of Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who is dismantling environmental protections.
“Sen. Isakson, will you support a bill to ban a pesticide, chlorpyrifos, that causes brain damage in children,” the woman continued.
“No now and maybe yes later… I am not willing to be a poster child for someone who wants me to be the point of a spear for a political battle.” Sen Isakson said to constituents, who were generally shocked.
Boos followed with shouts of “People above Party.”
“Will you call for the President to remove self-confessed Nazis and White supremacists from his Cabinet, namely Steve Bannon and Steven Miller,” a man said to loud cheers of agreement from the crowd.
[Since the meeting, Bannon has resigned from the administration.]
“No but…” Isakson started to reply, but boos drowned him out, while he restated his opposition to white supremacists.
“The president has to stand firm for the decisions he makes and I vote against any Nazi,” he said.
At a press conference after the meeting, Atlanta Progressive News asked Sen. Isakson if he believed that healthcare was a right or a privilege.
“To mandate that every citizen has it automatically and you figure out how to pay for it – I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to get in the business of saying I’m going to solve everyone’s problems by assessing everyone else to pay for your problem,” Sen. Isakson answered.
See: Georgia Grassroots Video by Judy Conder
(END / Copyright Atlanta Progressive News / 2017)
An Urgent Message About The Obamacare Repeal And Replace Debacle And The Single Payer Mass Delusion
Here is the hard scientific proof why the Obamacare disaster should absolutely and positively be repealed and certainly not be replaced. What is now happening is sobering and definitive action must be taken before it is too late to stop a national disaster.
Please let me briefly introduce myself. I am 46 year veteran and privileged insider of the healthcare industry. I have been conducting a prolific, private R&D program that started about 30 years ago in the San Diego area.
Today, this effort is undisputedly the definitive authority on the evolution, and devolution, of the provider sector of the American healthcare industry.
In short, there is now overwhelming, irrefutable, hard scientific and mathematical evidence that the entire healthcare industry has reached the most critical period in its history, is extremely unstable, and highly vulnerable to sudden and violent collapse–the tipping point. Technically, it’s a bimodal annihilation catastrophe–the little bang that triggers the big bang. For a complete explanation of this universal phenomenon, please Google the term: bimodal annihilation catastrophe.
The entire industry is demonstrably highly fragile and vulnerable to small “perturbations.” About seven decades ago the famous Harvard economist, Joseph Schumpeter, called it creative destruction. This super-critical phenomenon is, undeniably, now at the nation’s doorstep.
Extensively demonstrated in the provided link below, are a few of the scientifically legitimate, historical valid, eminently authoritative arguments that demonstrate irrefutably that the Obamacare disaster should be repealed an absolutely, positively not replaced.
Plus, the hard evidence presented in the link provided proves beyond any shadow of a doubt, that implementation of any form of Single Payer schemes will trigger the sudden and violent collapse of the mainspring Physician Services Industry. It’s huge posting annual revenues of about $500 billion.
The avalanche-like collapse of this keystone industry will in-turn trigger a domino-effect, steam-rolling catastrophe and generate killer shockwaves throughout the provider industries such as the massive hospital industry and the clinical laboratory industry. Hundreds of hospitals will close.
Next, the killer shockwaves will pulverized the tens of thousand of companies in the entire healthcare supplier industry especially the ailing pharmaceutical industry that’s already in a nosedive.
The scientific evidence is incontrovertible; it’s the highest form of evidence. Plus, it’s a ticking time-bomb. And time, precious time, is rapidly running out. The American healthcare industry has been mismanaged for about 100 years; it’s astonishing but true and easily demonstrated.
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Fortunately, for the prudent Americans, this looming catastrophe presents an unprecedented opportunity not only to gain the admirable recognition for exposing and stopping this monstrous, steam-rolling, cataclysmic disaster, but also to harvest a vaunted leadership position in the nation and beyond.
Please take the opportunity to review the evidence presented in this draft (my apologies in advance for the typos but the urgency of the predicament took precedence). Please call anytime for further clarification of this evidence.
Here is the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9hwrc685927lvda/Overshoot%202.pdf?dl=0
Respectfully submitted,
Frank Toto
San Diego area
1-858-278-5050
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my 65 years it is that REAL scientists don’t use such hyperbole and hype when discussing their findings. I can’t even be bothered to read his data as he has already lost his credibility.
Kudos to APN reporter Gloria Tatum for sharing so many details of the meeting and kudos to the headline writer who captured exactly what Tatum’s article reveals in detail.
No mention how many in attendance at this meeting were in the Antifa movement. From the alleged shouts and disruptions I would think some are present. This is a group of thugs who embrace Communism and deplore Nazis. The Communists were far better at killing people than the Nazis. Hitler maybe killed 30 million. Stalin killed 40 million, Mao killed 50 million, Pol Pot 2 million, the list goes on. The Antifa is group of thugs who hid behind masks that are a danger to the country. They need to be declared a terrorist organization.
Antifa is NOT Communism…It is Anti Facism,,,get it..antifa!
tHESE MEETINGS SOUND GOOD BUT THE MISERY KIND OF LIKE LES MISERABLES GRINDS ON AND ON. mANY PEOPLE ARE AFFECTED BY THE CRISISES THRUOUT NORTH, MIDDLE AND SOUTH GEORGIA. mANY OF THE PEOPLE WITHOUT A HEALTH PLAN ARE REPUBLICANS OR MIDDLE OF THE ROAD FOLKS.tHEY ARE IN THE DARK ABOUT WHY OUR SYSTEM CANNOT HELP ITS OWN PROPERTY TAX PAYERS AND WHY THEIR ARE NOT ANY DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO WORK OR INVEST IN HEALTH CARE OR APPLY FOR BENEFITS, CLEAN HOSPITALS AS WELL AS SHUTTLE PATIENTS.this is a recipe for disaster coming to your county.