16 January 2017

Montana health care rallies: modest turnouts but enthusiasm aplenty

Montanans held rallies against repealing the Affordable Care Act in Bozeman, Helena, and Missoula, yesterday. I can’t find a turnout estimate for Bozeman’s rally, which featured Rep. Amanda Curtis, but the Helena Independent Record reports 200 assembled at the capitol. In Missoula, where Democratic congressional hopeful Rob Quist appeared, the turnout was 70 according to the Missoula Current, and 70–80 according to Intelligent Discontent blogger Pete Talbot, who was there. Talbot reports enthusiasm was high.

Those are modest turnouts, large enough to attract some attention, but not large enough to impress or intimidate Montana’s representatives in Congress. If Montana’s save the ACA forces cannot muster larger, much larger, crowds — crowds approaching torchlight and pitchfork mobs — they should switch from rallies to other means of exerting political pressure.

Republicans in Congress may be so hardened by ideology that they’re no longer listening to the voters or common sense on health care issues. Believing that any government involvement in health care is intrinsicly evil, they’re asking what Ayn Rand would do instead of asking what their constituents need.

But it’s possible that some Congressional Republicans are still listening, even if just barely, to hospitals. That’s where I would direct at least some political pressure, as sometimes the interests of the people and hospitals coincide (pressure from Montana’s hospitals was responsible for pushing Montana’s humiliate and harass the poor expansion of Medicaid through the 2015 legislature).

These rallies would not have been necessary if Democrats had not thrown away the Presidency by nominating a weak and loathed candidate, Hillary Clinton, who waged a feckless, mistake-riddled, identity politics campaign.