West Virginia Interview on Health Care
Reporter:Do you want Washington to fix anything, or would you rather the politicians leave you alone?
Sheila:That’s a touchy one. Um, I, I think they have good ideas. I really do. There’s, you know, some of the hardline people would say, “Well, they need to just leave us alone.”
Reporter:How about you, sir?
Dennis:Well, I feel about the same thing ’cause I’ve had heart troubles and stuff.
Reporter:Did your insurance cover everything, or…
Dennis:Yeah, through the MWA. They, they take care of me pretty good.
Reporter:And do you…. When they talk in Washington about covering the uninsured and trying to drive down costs, do you trust them to handle this right, or do you worry that in changing to help people who don’t have insurance, that those who do might end somehow up paying the price?
Dennis:Well, I like to see them help people who don’t have health insurance. A lot of people don’t have it.
Sheila: Especially the, the children. You know, there’s so many children even around here that have no health care coverage.
Reporter:Do you trust them to deal with it in Washington? Do you think they have the right ideas, or do you worry about that?
Angie:Oh, yeah, I worry about it, but….
Reporter:What do you worry about?
Angie:They’ll do what they want to do anyway, you know.
Reporter:Do you think they understand communities like this?
Angie:Probably not. If they’d come out in the little communities, you know, they would see and talk to people.
Reporter:You run a small business that’s dependent on people having money in their pocket that they’re willing to spend. How are things now as opposed to, say, six months or a year ago?
Angie:Um, it’s been slow due to the coal mines, like a lot of the coal miners are getting laid off, losing their jobs, so that affects everybody, you know, it’s really affected here.
Reporter:The domino effect. So the coal, if the coal economy is struggling, you struggle too.
Angie:Right, right. It affects all of us—all the businesses. That’s what my husband’s into, like, tires, you know, the tire business for Goodyear. It affects here, his business, like everybody’s. It’s the coal business.
Reporter:And why is the coal business struggling right now?
Sheila:Because of all the other businesses that are, that are taking cutbacks and, and shutdowns and things like that. Um, they don’t need the coal for the electricity to run these bigger buildings.
Reporter:How has that changed over the years? Now in a lot of circles, in political circles, you know, coal has a dirty name.
Dennis:Well, I don’t know. I just… It’s looking bad right now for coal. I don’t know, I don’t know exactly what to say about that.
Reporter:When you hear… even Al Gore has, his organization pays for TV ads saying there’s no such thing as clean coal.
Dennis:I heard they want to do away with coal. So, I mean, if they do, this country’s had it. This state here’s had it.
Reporter:Well, what would happen in a state like this if they went, cut back even more on the use of coal?
Dennis:Well, this place would look like a ghost town. There wouldn’t be nothing left here.
Reporter:Do you think the president of the United States is on your side?
Angie:Uh, it doesn’t look like it right now.
Reporter:Why?
Angie:’Cause he’s against the coal mines, coal. Yeah. As far as I know, he’s never been close by, so….
Reporter:Do you think he’s on your side, sir?
Dennis:I don’t know. From what I’ve heard of it, no, I don’t.
Reporter:How about you?
Sheila:I’m still debating that. Um, you know, you have the singers and the, the stars that come and they tour the coal areas, especially the strip mines and things like that. They don’t, they don’t get to see, you know, how hard these men work and things like that, and sometimes I think it would do these higher-up politicians a lot of good to come and, and grunt with these coal miners.
Source: CNN Videos Length: 3:30