Aurora Comms Blog

Town hall meetings get interesting…

Posted on 20. Aug, 2009 by Handbaglady in Health, News

A very interesting thing is happening across America at the moment – people are very publicly voicing their opinions about an issue that affects every single one of their population – healthcare.

President Obama’s plans for healthcare reform have lead to widespread debate, criticism and media scrutiny but the debate about healthcare is not new – it just seems that for the first time, people in the US feel like they are being asked for their opinions and that someone might actually be listening.

I mentioned in my last post that President Obama planned to go on the offensive and hold a Town hall meeting in New Hampshire. These meetings across the country have now become the focus of this debate and the media has had a field day showing the shouting, arguing and drama at some of these gatherings. But it has also been widely reported that despite the odd bit of hysteria, in general the meetings have been constructive. Interestingly, when Clinton attempted a healthcare reform back in the 90’s there were no such public meetings.

What struck me about these meetings was the simple fact that people are coming together to air their opinions and trying to change a system many believe in need of reform. In this age of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, it’s good to see that much of this debate is happening in the good old fashioned way, in person, face-to-face with people putting their individual views across.

Americans are also upturning the view that they are passive and uninterested and are taking an active role in their own health and well-being. It will be interesting to see how the reforms pan out and what continues to come out of Town halls across the US…

Tags: healthcare reform, transatlantic