Views around metro Atlanta vary

By Mark Davis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Can one topic unite and divide? If it’s health care, the answer is yes.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week interviewed three dozen people about the nation’s health care, posing questions to people in Atlanta, its northern suburbs and outlying regions south of the state’s capital city.

On one point, everyone agreed: We need some sort of reform.

But what, exactly? A government plan for all? Better private programs? A combination of public and private plans?

Lawyer, laborer, office worker, chef: Their answers varied from city to country, from East Atlanta to Macon. A 20-year-old Norcross guy filling out a job application didn’t see the issue in quite the same light as a Bolingbroke octogenarian, for example.

In Atlanta, most respondents said they favored some sort of government health plan. Most in the suburbs took a different view — the government, they said, should stay out of examining rooms. Farther out, people were divided what’s best for health care. The responses always didn’t mirror who had coverage, and who did not: Several people who did not have coverage said it wasn’t the government’s job to provide it for them.

Those queried were picked at random. All were civil, a marked departure from many recent “town hall” meetings marked by shouting and insults. All freely admitted they didn’t fully understand the proposals being debated. All were willing to take a few moments to explain what he or she thinks is best for this nation.

But everyone, it seemed, had a different idea of what “best” would be.

Atlanta

William Mays moved the brush from one hand to the other, keeping it moving as he applied white paint to the black burglar bars on the front door of his brother’s southwest Atlanta home. He’s 45, self-employed, and favors a government plan for all.

“It’s got to be affordable,” said Mays, who is uninsured.

The brush stopped in mid-stroke. “I work,” said Mays, “and I can’t afford it.”

Health care is not cheap, agreed Joe Weiner. He and his partners operate the Bagel Palace, a Toco Hill mainstay for more than a decade. It’s the kind of place where weekend visitors linger over the Sunday paper, the reflection of passing cars passing highlighting headlines. The business offers a plan that employees can purchase, but none has chosen it, said Weiner.

Why? “Cost,” said Weiner, 62, who has a policy.

He isn’t sure what sort of plan would work best, but he knows what isn’t working.

“The current system?” he asked. “Blow it up and start over. We need reform.”

Perhaps the government could enhance some of its existing programs, said Sam Scott of Atlanta. A recent evening found him practicing putts at John A. White Park in south Atlanta. He gave one putt all the body English his 73-year-old back would allow, to no avail: The ball ringed the opening, then rolled into the gathering darkness.

“In the abundance of America,” the retired state education administrator said, “health care ... should be for everybody.”

A veteran — he served in the Army from 1956 to 1959 – Scott has coverage through the Veterans Administration. He wondered out loud why lawmakers couldn’t expand Medicare and programs for needy children to cover people who cannot afford private health care.

“Couldn’t we improve on those programs to help the people who don’t have it?”

How about people who are working, but can’t afford coverage? Chef Joe Bower thinks the government should create a program for all Americans.

Drinking coffee in East Atlanta, the Reynoldstown resident said he favors a government plan for all. With him was Quigley, his amiable old golden retriever.

“In a first-world country like this, I think it’s a right,” said Bower, 22, who is uninsured. “I think it is the responsibility, a little bit, of the government to protect families from financial ruin” brought by crushing health-care costs.

Suburbs

Suzie, a 15-year-old Shih Tzu, quivered miserably as Donald Howell lifted her rear legs. A clipper buzzed, and curly fur fell on the table where Howell held her inside his Tucker shop.

“I think the government should stay out of our business,” said Howell, an insured Watkinsville resident who has been clipping pets for 38 years.

He has little faith in any government program. “Everything the government has got into,” he said, “it’s screwed up.”

An east Cobb barber shares that sentiment.

“You’re guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this country,” said Robert Dunlop, 52, watching raindrops the size of nickels fall in a silver shower. “But we’ve never been guaranteed 401(k)s, or health insurance.”

Only children should be guaranteed health coverage; everyone else, said Dunlop, should work for a plan. He includes himself in that category: Dunlop said he isn’t covered.

Lawrenceville resident Pamela Price, 26, isn’t covered. And that’s not the government’s concern, said Price, a chiropractic assistant.

“People have to work to provide themselves with things,” said Price. “Health care is one of those things people work hard for.”

Price said she distrusts any plan the government may run. “I want to be able to spend my money the way I want to — not the way the government tells me to,” said Price. “I don’t want someone telling me I have to wait in line for [care], just because I have to wait for someone who doesn’t work.”

Current health care programs are barely working, said Marietta law partners Richard Wingate and F. Edwin Hallman Jr. Each has health care coverage through their workplace, but know others aren’t so well covered. They believe the system needs revamping — but neither is sure how.

Wingate, 33 and a Marietta resident, thinks a combination of plans might work. Perhaps the country needs a “hybrid” — private plans for those who can afford it, and public funding for others.

“Something needs to be available,” he said.

Hallman, 63, who has been a lawyer for 38 years, nodded.

Health care, he said, is a privilege, “but it should be a right.”

Points south

It was a busy morning at Caldwell’s Opticians. The shop, a mainstay in downtown Macon for a half-century, hummed with customers — people buying contacts, getting their glasses adjusted, and more. Folks read magazines, waiting for their name to be called. A TV with the volume turned low flashed images from the corner.

Optician Judy Caldwell smiled as she took a customer’s credit card. It faded when she considered the nation’s health care.

Caldwell, 77, who has health insurance, thinks the government should establish a universal plan for those who cannot afford anything else. But people who can pay for their own coverage, she said, should be allowed to shop around.

“I just know that it doesn’t have to be as expensive as it is,” she said.

A few blocks away, Sarah Tapley caught her breath after the morning tumult at Loaves and Fishes, a ministry catering to the homeless.

“You would think everyone is entitled to good health care,” said Tapley, 62, an administrative assistant who has health coverage. “But, as a good taxpayer, I want to say, ‘Yes, it is a privilege.’ ”

Tapley paused and eyed a stack of bread that would be distributed later.

“Any time government gets involved, people are afraid of losing their freedoms,” she said. “I think that’s what people are most concerned about.”

The government plan is something any taxpayer should fear, said Harry Callaway of Bolingbroke. He’s 81 and insured, a retired civil service worker who restores antique furniture. On a recent afternoon, he bent over a battered dresser, moving slowly in the shadow of a live oak.

“That health care plan is 1,000 pages long, isn’t it?” asked Callaway, whose Monroe County home is about 50 miles south of Atlanta. “That tells me something: Any time a lawyer wants to hide something, he hides it in a lot of pages.”

Callaway picked up his sandpaper and returned to the dresser. “Anything that’s written in 1,000 pages,” he said, “I don’t trust it.”

Taxpayers are at risk in health-care reform, agreed Robert Mohl and Martin Sanz of Griffin. They stood in an office in Griffin-Spalding Airport, where both work. Thunderclouds piled up over the far side of the runway, but neither man bothered to look: Each is accustomed to watching the sky.

Sanz, who is insured through his employer, fears that the middle class will shoulder an undue burden if health-care benefits are extended to the uninsured.

“It won’t be fair,” said Sanz, 32, the city-owned airport’s finance and accounts specialist. “It never is fair.”

“The Christian in me says, ‘I got to help out who I can,’ ” said Mohl, 43, the airport’s director, who’s also insured. “But you reach the point when enough is enough.”

That point, the men agreed, is imminent.