Healthcare tensions spill over into minor shouting match

Tensions over the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare vote on Tuesday briefly spilled over into a minor shouting match outside the committee room between advocates of the bill and five top Republicans who opposed it.

GOP Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.), National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas), Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (Iowa), Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ranking member Mike Enzi (Wyo.) and senior Finance Committee member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) were finishing a press conference in a Hart Senate Office Building hallway when they asked for questions from reporters.

During a pause, a group of protesters spoke up who had sat silently in the committee room, holding signs that advocated for healthcare reform. The protesters numbered about a dozen and wore hospital patient gowns over street clothes.

“Why did you suppress the discussion of single-payer, right from day one?” asked one woman angrily. “You think you know so much about it? You blocked the discussion from day one.”

Another woman castigated Grassley for allegedly asking committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for permission to have critics arrested during the committee’s meetings.

“I heard it on C-SPAN,” the woman yelled at Grassley. “C-SPAN doesn’t lie. Shame on you.”

Kyl, Grassley, Enzi and Hatch quickly left the scene, but Cornyn stayed to explain his vote to a California-based couple who are enrolled in Medicare and had traveled to Washington to watch the vote. Cornyn stayed for several minutes, calmly stating his reasons before leaving.

The couple, Bob and Bonnie Wolfe of Santa Cruz, Calif., said they appreciated Cornyn’s gesture but still did not feel listened to.

“The situation is, I have never been able to get a clear answer from any politician as to why Medicare covers 80 percent of my costs, but the insurance companies were able to come in and get their foothold in for that 20 percent,” Bob Wolfe said.

“From our point of view, they shuffle papers,” said Bonnie Wolfe. “They have nothing to do with our health care. They don’t take care of us.”