| 3/1/2010 11:21:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| LISTEN UP — U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold held his 29th listening session of the year at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Friday. The Walworth County gathering drew about 100 attendees, whose questions ranged from how the nation is going to fix healthcare to whether high-speed rail is good for Wisconsin. Shown above listening to a question are, left to right: UW-Whitewater Chancellor Richard Telfer; state Rep. Kim Hixson, D-Whitewater; Feingold aide Katie Rowley and Sen. Feingold. — Daily Union photos by Chris Welch. |
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Healthcare tops Feingold queries
By Chris Welch
Union staff writer
WHITEWATER - Healthcare, the deficit and high-speed rail were among the topics discussed as U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold held a Walworth County listening session on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus Friday.
The gathering in Timmerman Auditorium, on the senator's 56th birthday, marked Feingold's 29th listening session in the state since the start of 2010, and his 1,253 listening session since he was elected to office in 1992. Feingold visits every county in Wisconsin each year; he was at Concord in Jefferson County in January and was slated to be in Fond du Lac County today.
About 100 people attended the 1 hour, 20-minute session. A number of Whitewater residents and UW-Whitewater students asked questions, and some others announced they had come from Elkhorn and Janesville to attend the session.
Accompanying Feingold to Timmerman Auditorium, which is inside Timothy J. Hyland Hall, were UW-Whitewater Chancellor Richard Telfer and state Rep. Kim Hixson, D-Whitewater. Katie Crawley, Feingold's south-central regional coordinator and a few other staffers also were on hand.
Healthcare reform was by far the most popular topic for the audience, with numerous attendees speaking either for or against the current healthcare bill in the Senate.
In fact, Whitewater resident Bob Burrows asked the first question of day, that being, "How do we move forward on healthcare?"
"I believe the most important priority is dealing with unemployment, and bringing spending down," Feingold said. "That does not mean we should not deal with healthcare. There are monumental efforts going on right now to get through the disagreements. I don't know what the next steps are yet."
Feingold said he thinks people have to regroup following the healthcare summit held Thursday between President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders.
"Healthcare is the most often subject of the listening sessions so far this year; frankly, about 95 percent of the comments have been favorable for universal healthcare until recently. Now it has turned negative. But, I do not want that to get in the way of all other governing. I don't have a clear answer for you today, but clearly, we will come to some resolution in the next two or three weeks."
UW-Whitewater student Samuel Gilbert asked about his ability to afford health insurance once he graduates in May.
"Any bill should have a provision that is in the Senate bill, which has Republican support, that says any insurance policy will have to allow a person to stay on the parent's coverage until they are 27 years old," Feingold said. "I think that is a good provision. That is one aspect among the hundreds in this bill."
One attendee called the current Senate healthcare bill "nothing but 2,400 pages of toilet paper" and recommended the whole thing be scraped until lawmakers deal with the deficit.
"I think that reflects a strong view in this country, and that is why I am listening to all the different things that are being said about it," the senator said. "There has been a lot of support for it in listening sessions I held in Dunn, Chippewa, Milwaukee, Washington, Price, Dane, Vernon, Monroe, Green and Rock counties. I have also run into strong opposition in other places, overwhelmingly in some counties. I can tell you this is one of the most sharp divisions I have ever seen, and it is really tough. Emotions are strong on both sides. I struggle every day to make sure that something is getting done, but making sure something awful is not getting done."
A nurse from Janesville said that insurance companies should not be allowed to deny insurance for pre-existing conditions.
"The Senate bill does prohibit denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions," Feingold said. "I have not heard any opposition to that even in the toughest town meetings. I think the reason these town halls have shifted recently is that this Massachusetts election occurred and now people think insurance companies can do whatever they want, and that is exactly what they are doing."
He said that health insurer WellPoint Inc. boosted rates in Wisconsin 17 percent Thursday.
"A lot of people say they do not want big government control, but do they want big insurance control? This is really why it is so hard, and people are now waking up to the sometimes ruthless insurance programs," said Feingold.
Another person waved a copy of the U.S. Constitution and asked the senator, "Where in here does it give you the authority to take over healthcare?"
"I keep the Constitution with me as well, sir," Feingold said. "It is in my car right now. In fact, I feel so strongly about the Constitution, I was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act. If there is authority in the Constitution to do things about healthcare -and I think there is, but I do not think it is unlimited - it is under Article 1, Sections 8 and 9, the General Welfare provision. I do not think the federal government can do whatever it wants in the name of the General Welfare clause, but the federal government was able to do Medicare, and I think that was constitutional. Some people are trying to get rid of that."
One person asked about insurance companies' profits. Feingold said the Senate bill "would require insurance companies spend 90 percent of what they get on healthcare and only 10 percent on fancy glass buildings."
Other issues discussed included the national deficit, events in Uganda, bipartisanship or the lack thereof in Washington D.C., filibuster usage, a recent Supreme Court decision on corporate spending on elections, and the proposed railroad connection between Milwaukee and Madison.
One questioner, who stated she had been out of the country for a few weeks, simply asked, "What I have missed?"
"We passed, with bipartisan support, a new jobs tax credit for employers," Feingold answered. "It is a modest provision, but it is a good thing. Controversy usually gets all the attention, but this was a bipartisan effort, and that is a good thing."
One person asked about the Supreme Court's decision that allows corporations to spend freely during elections.
"There is a week in January that will go down in corporate history as a national holiday in corporations," Feingold said. "That decision was absolutely lawless. It did not over turn the McCain-Feingold law. Everybody was coming up to me and asking if I was OK - everything else got overturned, but McCain-Feingold is still the law.
"This is what is so screwed up about this," he added. "McCain-Feingold says that corporations and unions cannot give directly to the political parties; politicians cannot up and ask them for $500,000- or $1 million contributions. That is still the law, but it wiped out all the other laws that say corporations and unions cannot use their treasuries. If you buy a gallon of gas from Exxon, they can take the money and immediately run ads to defend their ridiculous profits. This is unbelievable. All the laws, all the court cases, going back to Teddy Roosevelt, with all the precedents - that (Supreme Court Justices) Alito and Roberts promised me under oath that they would respect precedent - then they threw it out the window. It was a terrible decision. Our whole system will be dominated by corporate money if nothing is changed, and there is not an easy answer."
Opinion editor Matt Gardner of the Royal Purple, UW-Whitewater's student newspaper, asked the senator about the planned light, high-speed rail train between Milwaukee and Madison. Gardner said he wrote an editorial against the train because he did not think the population would support it; he cited Seattle and Denver as having "failing" light rails and asked if Wisconsin really needed it.
"I will be listening to concerns about this, but my overall gut feeling is that this is something good and we should be excited about it," Feingold replied. "There are issues, but they did use objective criteria to determine where $8 billion for the whole country will go. This line, on all the issues you are talking about, scored so high in terms of density issues and all the other issues, that Wisconsin got $1 billion. Out of all the states, including California and New York, we got the most by far because they determined this area scored the highest for being underserved for its density."
He added, "I have lived in this area between Madison and Milwaukee for over 50 years, and this is a very different scene than it was in the 1950s. Congestion is terrific and problematic. I do not have all the answers, but this project will produce 13,000 jobs just for the railroad itself, not counting all the related jobs. Of course, it won't be worth it if it does not work. It is expensive. But I think it could be important to the economic development of the region.
"This is a conversation we will have to have over time," Feingold said. "But when people say that we never get any federal dollars, that is hard to argue now because this is one of the biggest things the state has ever gotten."
Near the end of the session, UW-Whitewater student Jordan Leahy asked, essentially, why is it only business students who are thought of as being entrepreneurs when most entrepreneurs are not business majors?
Feingold called that one of the "most unique questions he has heard in 1,200 listening sessions."
Feingold added that he and Chancellor Telfer had discussed a similar topic prior to the session Friday, and then he asked Telfer to speak more on the issue.
Telfer described UW-Whitewater's multi-county and multi-state (Wisconsin and Illinois) consortium efforts to help people become entrepreneurs "in all disciplines who can create the jobs we need to help this country get back on its feet."
"I have never thought of non-business school students that way," Feingold added. "But, of course, that is true. That is a very good concept to put into my brain."
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