Thousands attend health care town hall in Atlanta : Jim Jess

Thousands of opponents of government-run health care turned out today to attend “America’s Health Care Town Hall” in Atlanta. Some 12,000 citizen activists gathered at Centennial Olympic Park to hear advocates and health care experts make their case against a government takeover of the health care industry. The event was sponsored by 19 grassroots organizations including Patients First, Tea Party Patriots, Center for Health Transformation, Free Our Health Care Now, American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity.

WSB talk show host Herman Cain, who moderated a panel on health care solutions, described the citizen movement against the leading health care plan in Congress as “growing, growing, growing.” Cain said that Democrats holding town hall meetings across the nation are selling government-run health care, but they are not listening to their constituents. He said, “This has awakened a sleeping giant.”

When asked if he considered the grassroots movement a new political movement, Cain replied, “No. It’s a new people’s movement.”

Wherever the conservative, African-American talk show host has traveled, he has witnessed a growing grassroots movement. “It just keeps getting bigger and bigger. The political elites are not listening.”

Speaking from the stage, WGKA Radio personality Joel Aaron shot down the charge, leveled by some in the media and in left-wing groups, that tea party events are bankrolled by special interests. Mary Beth Martin, national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, one of the main national tea party organizing groups, said she wished that she had been given lots of money to organize the grassroots movement. She told the audience that the tea party movement was “funded by people like you.”

Off-stage, Martin said that the tea party movement had developed so quickly – with some 1.2 million participants in tea parties nationwide on April 15th – that organizers were concentrating now on building a structure for the organization. She said Tea Party Patriots would continue to fight for their three core values of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets.

When asked about plans for the movement after the planned September 12 march on Washington, Martin said citizens will need to continue to make their members of Congress understand that they oppose government-run health care, as well as cap-and-trade (climate) legislation that would dramatically increase the cost of energy.

Virginia Galloway, State Director of Americans for Prosperity, said the event was a “forum on how to make health care more accessible and affordable without the government gaining more control over our lives.”

Aaron said the event was an answer to the accusation that opponents of H.R. 3200, the health care bill moving through the U.S. House, don’t want reform. He said, “We need reform. What we don’t want is health care being used as a façade for control over our lives.”

Aaron said H.R. 3400, a bill sponsored by Georgia Congressman Tom Price of Roswell, was a better alternative than H.R. 3200. He mentioned medical malpractice reform and the ability to take one’s health care across state lines as reforms worthy of support. He also acknowledged that health savings accounts (HSAs) – privately controlled, tax-deductible accounts used for health care expenses – were part of the solution.

State Representative Ed Setzler (R-Cobb), who offered an opening prayer from the stage and read from Psalm 121, put the question of health care in stark terms: “This is nothing less than answering the question, ‘Who is responsible for basic needs, the citizens or the government?’” He commented further, “When basic needs are provided by the government, democracy evaporates.”

A panel of doctors and health insurance experts aired their concerns about the enactment of government-run health care legislation and offered a number of alternatives. Dr. David Westbrock, president of Consumer First Health Network, said we should give citizens control of their health care dollars through HSAs and that doctors need to publish their prices so consumers can make intelligent choices in the marketplace. Dr. Fred Shessel, vice president of Docs 4 Patient Care, said that under H.R. 3200, a bureaucrat using a cost-benefit analysis would make decisions about an individual’s health care. He suggested that we “solve the problems [in health care] with common-sense, market-driven reforms.”

Docs 4 Patient Care supports such reforms as allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines in order to increase competition and drive prices down; encouraging the use and expansion of HSAs; and reducing frivolous malpractice lawsuits, which drive up health care costs for everyone.