by Danae Jones Aicher

When I moved here a little more than two years ago, it didn’t take so long to pick up on a certain cultural pride here in Virginia, particularly here in Hampton Roads. It’s the pride of being “the first”, the beginning of that great experiment which turned into this democracy known as the United States of America.

So as I watch and listen and read all the news about protests at health care town hall meetings across the nation, I get a little concerned. For the purposes of full disclosure it is appropriate for me to point out here that for a few years, my career was in pushing Democratic candidates and campaigns. That part of my life has been over for more than a year now, largely due to personal matters.

About a year and a half ago, I got a call from my mother in Tampa. She was in the emergency room because of chest pains she’d been complaining about even while she was visiting my husband and me here just the month before. The doctors, she said, suspected her breast cancer was back and had spread. It was the beginning of the most significant change in my life. Within six months, my mother- my best friend, my greatest advocate, my greatest critic, and the person I most wanted to emulate as a woman- would be dead.

In many ways, we were lucky, given the circumstances. While there was no health insurance to speak of, and, although she was retired, she was not old enough for Medicare. We were able to qualify for social security. And the government was surprisingly swift in qualifying her and sending checks that helped out. On top of that, my brother and I were fortunate enough to be in a position to fill in the gaps.

I didn’t have time to focus on it then, but now I find myself looking around at people and wondering, “How would they fare if similar illness hit the family?” And, in my humble opinion, that has to be the central question in this health care debate.

There are all kinds of reasons people are left without health insurance and, therefore, without health care. That’s the situation for far too many people who don’t have family members who can fill in the gaps. And there are many others with insurance who are suffering under the burden of rising health care costs or suffering under the burden of possibly losing their health insurance.

How do we help these people? Should we help these people? What is the cost to us and our economy if we do help these people? What is the cost to us and our economy if we don’t?

All of these questions are worthy of discussion and debate where all of us who choose are free to weigh in. I completely support protest. More than that, I support the right to protest. But when my protest disrupts your right to weigh in, my protest hurts our democracy. And that’s what I see happening with many of those opposing health care reform at the town hall meetings.

Those who yell out during the meetings aren’t protesting health care reform (which, again, is perfectly legitimate), they’re protesting our right to have the discussion, to have a civil debate. That goes against our democracy. It goes against what makes us America.

I am sometimes ambivalent about the massive change we are facing if health care reform passes. I agree there needs to be a change and yet, I’m concerned about the cost.

So I hope our Congressional delegation will bring the discussion here to Hampton Roads. It would be great if they could show us here on the ground that they are willing to work together on this critical issue. Ideally, in this, the cradle of our democracy- where it all began- we can show the nation how it really should be done.

Hopefully, we can remind the country what our democracy is all about and have a civil town hall meeting.

Danae Jones Aicher is a former journalist-turned political communications advisor. She now is a soon-to-be-stay-at-home-mom working on a book about raising biracial children.