Just a few off the mark, but a success nonetheless.
The Argus is reporting this AM that the attendance of yesterday’s anti-socialized medicine rally was a bit less than the 10,000 they’d hoped for:
A head count showed 325 people in the grandstand for the midafternoon speeches, though organizer Dr. Allen Unruh later estimated 500 to 700 people attended at least some of the four-hour rally. Either way, the turnout was a fraction of the 4,000 at Covell Lake on April 15 to re-enact the Boston Tea Party in protest of government spending.
I don’t think the event was a failure by any means, as they did get some nice coverage on a regional and statewide basis about the issues that the rally were all about. And the organizers can take heart from that. As well as a lesson that they should have planned it for the 4th itself (a day off) and not talked about those kind of numbers for attendance.
Yes, they were more than a few numbers off the mark, but I think it was a success nonetheless. What have people been talking about the last 3 or 4 days, and what do they continue to talk about? Socialized medicine. Even the Argus was in on the act yesterday with a live on-line event with Senator Thune where the topic was covered.
Ok. So they’ll take their lumps for a bit of hyperbole. But they did an important thing in the arena of political battle – they set the agenda.
And we’re still talking about what they did.
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Comments
Total failure. People saw this rally for what it was, seven docs extolling the evils of socialization to preserve their own interests — personal wealth. We already ration health care in this country on the ability to pay.
I don’t think it should be looked at as a failure. It is only the beginging.
It was also held at one hectic and busy time.
The next one will be bigger!
And, PP, the agenda they set was….?
Wait… let me guess.
“How to have a party where nobody shows up.”
Yup, sounds like the latest in GOP memes to me.
Bill, don’t be doltish. They had been, and continued the focus on Socialized medicine.
It appears that grade school math is failing you. Lets see here – throw a party for 10,000 nuts (actually 20,000-but it was a two-for-one tea bagging, right?)
and 325 show up. That a success rate of: drum roll please . . . 3.25% Or for you glass-half-fullers it was a 96.75% FAILURE.
not surprised that Unruh failed in counting supporters. this is the same guy that has failed to lead the pro-life movement to victory at the ballot box in South Dakota of all places. we need some new leadership in the conservative movement.
“Doltish.”
Love it.
I haven’t been called that in two days!
So Pat, do they want to do away with Medicare and Medicaid? US Health aid to foreign countries? The Department of Health and Human Services? Can you clarify? I’m so doltish, I guess I still don’t get it.
p.s. “Dolt” related words: dullard, pillock, poor fish, pudden-head, pudding head.
(Whew… At least he didn’t call me a pillock!)
My God! I just read the article in the Argus Leader and the first thing that comes to mind is “what is wrong with these people….what cave did they just come out of?”
Dr. Ringen, the Lennox dentist, said he is leery of intervention in his dental practice. “I surely don’t want to participate in a system where we’re so controlled and so regulated we can’t do what patients need and what they’re asking for,” he said. For goodness sakes! I can’t believe that is coming from a Doctor! Ask anyone that works in a medical clinic or for any medical doctor about having to get approval for certain treatments/procedures/operations and even medications. Ask them about how the insurance company bean counters have a say so over the medical doctors. And then you get a public health nurse Twila Brase saying “”It puts bean-counting bureaucrats in charge of whether you live or die.” Come on! Yes, it is a proven fact that this ALREADY HAPPENS every single day with every insurance company.
And then Brase warned against a movement toward electronic medical records and Dr. Blake Curd said the industry needs to find a way to improve record-keeping without forcing physicians to sit and type at a keyboard while trying to talk with patients. LOL PLEASE! Doctors sitting at the keyboards typing in the information! LOL When was the last time they were in a clinic or a hospital? 50 years ago?
A whole separate profession has grown out of medical record-keeping. And believe me, it’s not the doctors inputing all that information! And Brase, electronic record keeping started going strong probably about 20 years ago. Thank God! And then maybe we should get into the electronic medical records record-keeping that our insurance companies farm out to overseas companies? Ah, yes they do. Now isn’t that a shock!
Jon, check your math.
When I divide 325 by 10,000 I get .00325. That’s 3 tenths of a per cent I think (right Troy? Pat?). I think that means the failure rate was more like 99.7%, but double-check me. Math’s not my thing. I’m pretty doltish at it.
p.s. If I’m right, that failure rate is almost as pure as Ivory Soap.
(Hey, once an ad man, always an ad man, right, PP?)
I would rather…..
Yes! Doctors DO imput the info–often right in the exam room. One of the programs is called SOAP Subjective-Objective-Assessment-Protocal(or maybe Program).
You identify a probable diagnosis–the computer gives you the questions with multiple guess answers that you click while speaking with the pt. Then you type in your notes as you speak to them. It is happening all over the country and right here in Sioux Falls!
And then you have Reid Boetel, 61, from Alcester, who said “he had several heart procedures at then-Sioux Valley and Avera Heart hospitals. In one case, a doctor forgave him the $100,000 he owed. Other treatments cost more than $200,000, which he covered by giving up property because he had no insurance. Federal reforms would prevent such a fiasco, but he said he wanted no part of it.”
YOu have got to be kidding me! The $100,000 that the doctor forgave was ADDED to every other patient’s bill! Isn’t that what happens? And if the $100,000 wouldn’t of been forgiven then what….he could of filed bankruptcy like millions of others do every year? And then he had to sell his property to pay for a different $200,000 bill! Do any of you see anything wrong with this at all? And you know what, for the majority of us in South Dakota the county would of had to pick up a bill like that. And guess what…..we ALL pay for the bill either through increased taxes/higher medical bills or higher insurance premiums. South Dakota Counties have “poor relief” tax funds. For people that: 1. Requires medically necessary hospital services and does not have public or private third-party insurance coverage; 2. Has no ability or only limited ability to pay a debt for hospitalization. Minnehaha County had $3,670,711 for poor relief in it’s 2009 budget! Gee….all of us end up paying for other people through our taxes….heck…..I guess we have been practicing socialism for how many years now?
And then you have Stan DeHaan, 70, playing a 6-foot-3 Abe Lincoln on stage during the program and saying “for many years paid more than $10,000 annually for medical insurance plus deductibles. Still, he doesn’t want a bigger federal role because of taxes.” Well good for him! But what about all the people in South Dakota that the $10,000 annual insurance payment is half or more of their yearly income?
I don’t know….something just isn’t right in reading that article. Something just isn’t right!
I saw KSFY Republican News gave the rally organizers extremely favorable press before the event by proclaiming 10,000 supporters were expected. But where is the follow up with the truth?
Expected 10,000. Actually got less than 400. That’s crappy reporting that even Fox would never do. If I were station owner, I’d fire the reporter, assignment editor and news director for that double gaffe.
“Just a few off the mark”…you are only 9,675 people off the mark. You mean to tell me that only 325 people care enough about the “socialization of medicine” in South Dakota to come out and protest…sounds like a sweeping mandate to me. (sarcasm intended)
“hectic and busy time” — I told you back in May that the July 4th holiday was a dumb time for a tea party. But do the tea partiers ever listen? No. Bad planning for the event: one more sign of their political incompetence.
Actually, the 4th of July would have been better than scheduling a rally during a regular working hours.
If the organizers can’t figure out that most of their audience is WORKING PEOPLE, it’s difficult to see much getting accomplished by it.
About 325 showed up for the “Farce at the Fairgrounds?”
That’s probably about right – probably an accurate percent of the number of people that are satisfied with their health care insurance – considering there are about 300,000 people in the area.
Ironic that so many of them are probably old enough to collect the socialist medicare benefits, though, no?
Also ironic – advertising it as expecting 10,000 – getting a turnout of only 325 – and claiming that as a success.
…and in the same breath, having one of the organizers, Unruh, quickly lie the figure to 700 – TWICE the actual number.
Kinda like claiming 4000 at Covell Lake 3 months ago – when the reports the next day claimed 3500 – but what’s an extra 500 when you’re trying to get the facts, the truth to the people, right?
…and they wonder why only 1 in 10 came back for the second act? Really?
“few numbers off the mark” — try a full order of magnitude.