Rolling in the Right Direction

To the Editor:

I have had the opportunity to attend three town hall meetings on health reform and was equally impressed and mortified. Assemblyman Greg Ball hosted two of these meetings, one in Fishkill and one in Somers, and did a terrific job. Collectively ideas for and against the health bill H.R. 3200 were heard and respected by the attendees. Assemblyman Ball challenged us when he asked us to propose some of our own ideas of reform. This was a valuable opportunity to listen to ideas such as tort reform, interstate competition among insurance companies, and tougher regulations that would not require a massive government overhaul of the health system. In Somers Assemblyman Ball even provided a panel of experts in the health and accounting field to answer any relevant questions. Overall these meetings were professional and well run with the Assemblyman giving us over four hours of his time.

The negative experience that I had was when I attended a last minute public meeting hosted by Congressman John Hall and moderated by the NAACP. He took questions from constituents, but I can't say the answers had any value. He often would change the topic and since no follow-up questions were allowed it was hard to keep the Congressman on track. In the end he gave us 45 minutes of his time and had to hide behind the NAACP. Congressman Hall will have a hard time being reelected in 2010 with a high quality candidate like Assemblyman Ball running against him.
James Carrera
Wappingers Falls