Garberville: Redwood TimesCongressman Mike Thompson held an early morning meeting with selected local residents at the Benbow Inn on Thursday, August 31, accompanied by his field representative Liz Murguia. The meeting was arranged and hosted by John Porter, owner of the Benbow Inn, and the Garberville/Redway Chamber of Commerce to allow the Congressman to touch base with his constituents during the August Congressional recess. ”I've spent just about the entire recess here in the district,” Thompson said, “at town halls and forums, getting out to talk with folks and hear what you're concerns are and letting you know what's happening in Washington. But I won't set the table for you. I wanted to hear your concerns.” Eric Fimbres, the Executive Director of Redwoods Rural Health Center, led off with a number of questions relating to health care. He expressed a lack of confidence in the current administration in regards to health care legislation. ”I think you should be concerned about the current administration's health care plan,” Thompson said. “There's no question that there's big gaps in the system that we have now.” Thompson said that he had heard concerns about health care throughout the district, and that problems exist across the country. ”There are underserved populations throughout,” he said, “and as you know we are facing more potential cuts in reimbursements.” Thompson went on to say that he was joining with other colleagues to try and push for a resolution on the reimbursement cuts and added that there are regulatory changes that will present a problem for health care providers if the President's ‘07 budget is passed. He predicted that as it stands the budget would eliminate some programs considered critical to health care. Fimbres also asked about the requirement that makes health care providers responsible for documenting the citizenship of patients. ”With the recent legislation that requires patients to prove that they were born here, we have a number of elderly patients who can't prove citizenship.” Fimbres went on to say that at his clinic they are not asking for proof and are continuing to provide health care. Thompson replied that he thought most people who work in the health care field are not prepared to be “immigration cops.” He said that he agreed that the requirement put undue pressure on health care providers and added that the impacts of the new requirement for proof of citizenship will have unintended consequences in other areas as well. He told an anecdote about a pear grower in Lake County who can't find enough laborers to harvest his crop. ”I'm pretty sure that they, I and the Farm Bureau are all on the same page when it comes to guest worker programs,” Thompson said, “but there's a political stalemate in Washington in dealing with the whole immigration issue. It's not political because of the traditional Democrats versus Republicans; it's Republicans versus Republicans. The right wing of the party wants one thing and the moderates want another. The whole immigration issue is not being dealt with and this laps over onto health care and other spheres such as agriculture, construction, and the hospitality industry.” Thompson added that, in terms of the health care, he thought the system was a long way from being fixed and the problems were only being exacerbated under present policies. He said that there were two actions that he thought would bring some immediate relief. One is to allow Medicare to negotiate better prices with drug companies, something current law prohibits, and the other is to override the President's veto on stem cell research. Fimbres responded by saying that they already had a number of patients who had reached the so-called “donut hole” wherein Medicare Part D patients become liable for the full cost of their medications. ”We are scrambling to find ways to help these folks get their medications,” Fimbres said, “without their having to pay $600 or $700 of their $1,200 Social Security check on prescriptions.” Thompson reiterated that he thought the whole health care system need to be “redone,” but the lack of available money needed to be addressed as well. ”I think a lot of you at this table realize that there's no problem that can't be dealt with if you have the resources to do it. To quote something Bill Clinton said, ‘Anybody who says you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it is talking about somebody else's problem.' The reality is there's just not enough money to do everything that everybody wants done. And to exacerbate that is that the federal government is already spending $360 billion more than it's taking in this year. And we have a national debt of $8.5 trillion and we pay about a billion dollars a day in interest on that debt. And the even sadder thing about that is that the publicly held portion of that debt, about 47%, is held by foreigners. That amount of the interest payment is going to some other country. That has to be considered when we're looking for solutions.” Thompson said that he believes Congress should pay for the bills it passes, and that there is only two ways to do that: either increase taxes or cut something else. He said he thought that ought to be done in a “transparent environment.” The enormous tax cuts of the past few years have taken money away from the revenue stream while the spending of that stream increased. Thompson said that the size of the debt impacts everyone's life because it means less money to address issues like health care and public safety, and because the debt means higher interest rates. The health care crisis was also on the mind of Syd Lehman who told Thompson that he thought that keeping the emergency room at the local hospital was crucial to the health of the entire community, but the ability to do that was threatened by a regulation that requires hospitals with ERs to also maintain a certain number of acute care beds. He said he would like to see the acute bed requirement eliminated. The issue of earthquake retrofitting hospitals in California was raised as well. ”To retrofit every hospital in California will cost more than the equity in those hospitals,” Thompson said. Hospital administrator Debbie Scaife told Thompson that the Garberville hospital only survives because the community is willing to contribute the $100 parcel tax. She said she didn't think the community ought to have to do that. She suggested that Medicare reimbursements should cover costs. Scaife also mentioned that the hospital district had received HERSA grants from Homeland Security in the form of lots of equipment. She said it was great to get equipment they couldn't otherwise afford, but she felt they had been given three years worth of equipment that they had trouble finding storage space for and didn't know how to use. She said the fourth year of Homeland Security granting would provide some education on how to use the equipment they have been given so they will know how to use it “when Iran bombs Garberville with anthrax,” but she added that some of the equipment they'd been given was very expensive and should have gone somewhere else, since it was unlikely to be used here. ”I don't disagree with that,” Thompson said. “I think that the way some of the Homeland Security stuff has been distributed is not in the best interest of the people of this country. You can see this from the failure to enact the recommendations of the 9-11 Committee. We're still not screening luggage, for instance.” In that vein, Dennis O'Sullivan said that he thought a plan to provide ID chips for every horse, cow, sheep, goat, and pig in the country was a waste of money. Thompson said he thought the original idea was that feed lots were seen as likely terrorist targets, but the plan had stalled. Thompson said that he didn't think any of these ideas were developed in the “Stupid Caucus.” He said most legislation is based on some kind of factual information with some desire to make things better, but things get off track. Jim Johnson raised the issue of the way the Americans with Disability Act is enforced through lawsuits that financially reward the person calling attention to lack of disability access with a lawsuit. He said that he thought the law ought to allow the owner 60 days or so to bring the building into compliance before fines were levied against the owner. And the fine money should go into the public pocket, not the pocket of the individual who brought the lawsuit. He also pointed out that the lawsuits are federal and require the sued to travel to San Francisco and hire a San Francisco attorney to defend against it. Thompson said that was why a lot of people just settle, because it's too expensive to defend. He said that he knew from personal experience that the people who go around filing ADA suits are “a pretty tough group.” On the other hand, there are business owners who won't do any modifications for handicapped access until they are sued. ”There are bad guys on both sides of this,” he said, “and then there are the honest guys like you who want to do the right thing.” He didn't see much hope in trying to change the law, however, and said that what he was trying to do was hold seminars on ADA requirements in his district. Thompson also touched on clean water and wastewater issues. ”There's just not enough money, even if everybody took their whole paychecks and gave it to the government, there's not enough money to fix all the water and wastewater facilities across the country. In California, you register with the state if you're out of compliance with the Clean Water Act and tell them how you're going to come into compliance. But there's not a district in the state that has enough money to come into compliance.” He said that he had tried to introduce legislation that would protect districts that are out of compliance from “bounty hunter” lawsuits like those that are brought in ADA compliance cases, but no one wants to be seen as critical of the Clean Water Act. O'Sullivan noted that when he had met with Thompson in the same venue a year ago, they had discussed whether or not gas would get to three dollars a gallon. ”I just wonder how much work is going on in Washington to come up with a real comprehensive energy plan that will lessen our dependence on oil,” he asked. Thompson answered that there was a great deal of frustration all across the country with current policies or lack of policies and that this frustration was reflected in the polls that show anywhere between 60 to 70 percent of the public feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction. He said he thought that public frustration rises when “you spend days debating who should marry whom and whether or not you should change the Constitution to prohibit flag burning instead of dealing with reimbursement rates for health care providers, problems with ADA, and all the things that affect people's lives on a day to day basis.” He said that the rising cost of gas was probably the last straw for many people. “And,” he added, “the truth is that nothing has been done about it. The oil industry has received huge, unpaid for, tax cuts. When that was being debated, the argument was that the oil companies would take the money and invest it in infrastructure and alternative sources of fuel. What they did instead was buy back stock options and raise directors' salaries. And up in Alaska, they haven't used the money to fix their infrastructure and the pipes are rotting. And there are no new standards for fuel mileage.” Thompson said he favored the development of an energy policy that would address climate change, dependence on foreign oil, and the development of alternative fuels. He said, also, that he thought it was unhealthy for the country to be ruled by one party. He said that because the Republicans control both the Senate and the House and the Presidency, issues are not being debated openly, that there have been instances when Democrats have been deliberately excluded from the discussion and the legislative process. Whether or not that changed, he said, would depend a lot on how the November elections turned out. ”There's been a mad rush to provide incredible tax benefits to some folks, and the reality of that is that there's nobody in Humboldt County who has benefited from that. Unless your name is Halliburton, your taxes aren't being cut. I think that if there's a change in either house in November, we're going to see more open debate on these issues and more movement on them.” Thompson said further that he felt the Republicans in Washington didn't really reflect the values of the Republicans in the country. People want problems solved,” he said, “and that's what we need to get back to. None of our problems are insurmountable. They're tough, hard and expensive, but they're not unsolvable.” Thompson responded to a couple of questions on the new economic numbers which show a decline in real wages, increasing levels of poverty and rising number of people without health insurance. He was asked if the Democrats are successful in regaining control of the House or the Senate, would there be any move to revisit trade policies and the loss of jobs in this country. ”I think it's safe to say in regard to our trade policies that you will see changes in trade policies that will provide as level a playing field as possible, especially in the areas of labor and the environment. Those are two areas where our trading partners have an advantage over us, since they're allowed to do what we aren't allowed to do. International labor standard, at a minimum, should be a component of every trade agreement.” Congress will go back into session after Labor Day for another round of work prior to the November elections. ”I think that voting is the lowest degree of involvement,” he said. “Get involved.” Thompson urged people to write, phone and e-mail members of the House and the Senate and express their opinions on issues that concern them. He said that he tries to read every letter he gets. He recently sent out 60,000 questionnaires throughout his district. He said the response has been phenomenal. He said that his fax machine is out of paper every morning from people sending him their comments on issues of concern to them.