The Affordable Care Act was uppermost on the minds of constituents who joined Rep. Lee Zeldin’s “telephone town hall” Thursday evening.
The questions constituents wanted to ask the congressman “were very focused on the ACA,” Zeldin’s communications director Jennifer DiSiena said Friday. Three of the 12 questions Zeldin answered during the hour-long call were about the future of the Affordable Care Act, which Zeldin voted with House Republicans to repeal multiple times during the last Congress.
“Health care” also received the most votes in the congressman’s first poll question during the call, which asked “Which issues are most important to you?” Zeldin read a list of 10 topics, with “health care” being sixth on the list. According to results provided Friday by DiSiena, there were 1,341 votes cast in the first poll question, with 308 or 23 percent going to health care. “Environment” received 242 votes (18 percent), “immigration or border security” got 215 (16 percent) and “taxes,” 153 votes or 11 percent. The rest of the topics got less than 10 percent of the votes: education, economy/jobs, foreign affairs/terrorism, infrastructure, veterans, spending/debt.
The congressman does not intend to release the results of the other four poll questions, which asked:
“Do you agree with the job I’m doing in Congress?”
“Do you approve of the job President Trump is doing?”
“Do you believe our country is on the right track or the wrong track?”
“What do you believe should be done with the Affordable Care Act?”
Without offering an explanation, DiSiena said today, “We are only publically releasing the results of the first survey question.”
Of the 9,116 people Zeldin said were on the call Thursday night, just 298 of them had pre-registered for the call. Five others had pre-registered but could not be connected “either due to technical issues, or they provided an incorrect or fax number,” DiSiena said Friday. In all, she said, 303 people had filled out the opt-in form on Zeldin’s website by a 5 p.m. deadline Thursday for the call, which was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. but got underway about 10 minutes late.
The rest of the participants were called by the congressman’s office. DiSiena said 100,000 homes in the First Congressional District, which stretches from Smithtown to the tips of both forks, were called to invite participation. She did not respond to a question asking how those homes were selected.
The 12 people who got the chance to ask Zeldin questions Thursday evening were prescreened by the congressman’s staff, DiSiena said.
“First, they are connected with a member of our staff who will verify that the person who wants to ask a question is still on the line. We also verify the constituents’ name and then ask for a brief summary of the topic they plan to discuss with the congressman,” she wrote in an email. “That info is then entered into the system, and goes to the congressman to respond. It is listed in front of the congressman by topic, so that a variety of topics can be covered,” she said.
“Through the years as we have done these calls, we have found that there are certain topics in particular that are being asked a lot more than others, which was the case again during the call with the ACA questions.”
