Conyers described last week's hearing as like a religious service, when inspiration suddenly strikes. "We've had hundreds of hearings," he said afterwards in an interview, available here. "Today was a transformative moment in the history of our accomplishing our goal," he said. "You know when something special happens."
The hearing was almost ignored by major news media with a few exceptions, such as a CNN camera crew (without an on-air reporter), the Pacifica Network's progressive radio and a Montgomery County cable access host from Maryland.
But web-enabled coverage enables a way around news gatekeepers. My report today provides the first compilation of witness videos by filmmaker Robert Corsini, who flew from Los Angeles to cover the hearing and is expected to publish his own account in Truthout shortly. Corsini and his co-producer Natalie Noel are working on a documentary about post-Katrina recovery efforts in Gulf States.
Noel was a witness also, and obtained the interview whereby Conyers shared his impressions from his career-long fight for better health care. Arguing that every other industrialized country provides care at half or less of total U.S. costs, Conyers sponsors the single-payer H.R. 676 bill, with a public option as a fallback.
As a reader advisory: The stories and video below about hardship, hope and struggle are not for everyone. I showed one clip to a friendly Washington news editor, who responded in essence: "Who cares?" Lots of people have problems, and lots of members of Congress are adept at voicing words of concern, with scant results.
All too true. But a single video of Jackson Lee taking the cellphone call during her Aug. 11 town hall meeting has now racked up more than half a million views on one website alone. Fox, CNN and others demonized her for talking on the phone while an attractive white cancer patient was attacking the congresswoman's position. You be the judge of whether there might be a subliminal race-based messaging prompting such an enormous reaction.
Critics also slammed her for thanking a town hall audience speaker who claimed to be a "general practitioner" but, upon investigation, confessed merely to working with physicians. Again, do we really think this particular congresswoman is the only one who thanks audience members without verifying their job-status in advance?
As the late conservative Paul Harvey used to say, let's look at the rest of the story. What did she and Conyers think so important at their hearing last week?
For perspective, the Conyers career in Congress began with election in 1964, and before then as a staffer for his Michigan delegation colleague John Dingell. Dingell, the longest-serving congressman in U.S. history, like his father in the seat before him, has been an unsuccessful advocate of universal coverage in an unbroken streak extending back eight decades. Like Conyers, Dingell is willing to compromise now by supporting the more modest initiative of a public option.
Health Care as a Civil Right?
As for my own involvement, I occasionally attend Conyers-led health care briefings that are open for congressional staff, the public and media, and I recently saw an opportunity for new material not previously reported: The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a 1960s civil rights pioneer and former congressman, joined with the two current members to propose a public education campaign on better health care.
Fauntroy brings a rare perspective to an effort drawing on civil rights experience. As an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Fauntroy was the principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, and also the 1965 Alabama civil rights marchers whose brutal treatment by police soon prompted introduction and passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
At the hearing last week, others confirmed the day's import. One of the first witnesses was cancer survivor Harriet M. Fulbright, widow of the Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright, whose televised Vietnam War hearings helped change national opinion about the war four decades ago. "I can think of no subject more important," she testified, "than health care for every citizen of this country."
Jackson Lee and Conyers listened for three hours, occasionally joined by other Democrats. A video of her comments is here as she urged an all-out battle in the days ahead on behalf of those sick and dying. "And those lost souls are telling us: That in their name, we must have an insurance coverage system."
One panel focused on physician opinions. Dr. Sanjeev Sriram, director of outreach for the 20,000-member National Physicians Alliance, quoted King as follows: "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." The witness added, "Sadly, this nightmare is still going on today."
The filmmaker Noel was a witness also. As Fauntroy beamed down from the dais, she thanked him for his civil rights service in her native Alabama. She went on to describe (with video here and her News from Indian Country column here) how she and Corsini began their documentary "Reinventing Paradise" about post-Katrina recovery problems in Gulf states two years ago.
