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On Friday July 17th over a dozen Franklin County Residents participated in the National Healthcare Freedom Rally by going to visit the offices of Senator Warner & the offices of Senator Jim Webb to inform the Senators of their views on health care reform.  The visit was coordinated by the Franklin County Patriots, the Roanoke Tea Party, and Campaign For Liberty. All togeather aproximately 50 people visited the offices of both Virginia's Senators in Ronaoke as a part of the organized effort.Nationally there were many other groups visiting the local offices of U.S. Senators.  The local organizers said they would have had a much larger turnout had the Rally not occured on a workday but acknowledged that there was not much choice as the Senate Offices are closed on weekends.

The Healthcare Freedom Rally grew out of the Tea Party Movement that has been growing across the country this year.  The first round of Tea Parties were held on April 15th to protest the growth of taxes and out of controll spending by the government. The second set of Tea Parties occured this month during the 4th of July weekend with most occuring on the Independence Day Holliday.

The local representatives of the Senators that the groups met with were: Drew Densmore, Outreach Representative of Senator Mark R. Warner (on left) and J. Martin Mash, Field Representative of Senator Jim Webb (on right). Both men were very polite during the meetings while they listened attentively, asked questions, and took notes throughout. They also promised to communicate the groups concerns to their respective Senator before the end of the day. At the end of the meetings both men politely thanked the members of the groups for comming to their offices to voice their concerns and reiterated that the Senator would be informed of the conerns of the groups.

The focus issue was health care but the opportunity to discuss other grievances was not wasted. Among the issues that were raised were: 1) Opposition to President Obama's proposed healthcare reform; 2) Fury over Congressmen & Senators not reading the bills before voting for them; 3) Support for HR1207/S604 the Audit the Federal Reserve Bill; 4)Opposition to the "Card Check" Bill; 5) Opposition to "Cap & Trade"; 6) Opposition to the "Hate Crimes Act"; & 7) Grave concern over the loss of Christian values in government.

The focus of the National Day of Protest was organized to voice opposition to the current proposals to reform health care to either Nationalize (or Socialize) the health care industry or to provide a public option. The groups fears: beaurocratic rules deciding whom is to receive care and government rationing of health care to cut costs. The group cited statistical and anecdotal evidence from Europe and Canida to illustrate their concerns. The group ackowledged that there do need to be reforms made as illustrated by out of controll costs, but they believe that government intervention is not the way to do this and attempts to do so will have the unintended adverse consequence of turning our health care system into a "wreck". The group suggested that the Senators consider suggestions from the National Center For Policy Analysis entitled "Ten Steps to a Patient-Friendly Health Care System." Some members of the groups stated that they had been forced to give up health insurance due to affordability issues but stated that they did not want the government to Nationalize the system or provide a "public choice" option.  When asked why one lady replied "It's not the governments place to take from others to give to me."

The protesters were also extreemly angry about members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives not reading bills before voting on them. Many could be heard to say "If the Senator is not given time to read a bill before it comes up for a vote he should automatically vote no because he does not know what he is voting for." The group also urged the Senators to consder the constitutionality of all bills before voting for any bill.

One bill that the groups urged the Senators to support was Senate Bill 604 (S604) which is a bill to require a full audit of the U.S. Federal Reserve which has never been audited since it's creation in 1913.

There was also unamious opposition (by the groups) to the "Card Check Bill" which if passed would take away the opportunity to vote for or against unionizing a workforce via secret ballot. Under the bill all that required would be for a majority of the workers to sign a petiton asking for the workplace to be unionized.  Unions have been trying to remove the secret ballot because under current law frequently they can convince workers to sign a pettion to have a vote but can not get enough votes during the secret ballot to unionize the workforce.

Opposition to "Cap and Trade" was another universal hot button issue for the groups.  The members pointed out that then number of scientists who are unsure that man is causing global warming or that are unsure that global warming exists is a growing list.  They also pointed out the data inconsitencies with data collected by weather monitoring stations that were placed on hot parking lots causing the temperature reading to be higher than it is in a field.  One person asked why that GreenPeace (a world recognised leader in Environmental protection) opposed "Cap and Trade". The protesters called "Cap & Trade" just another tax. They also pointed out that estimates on costs to the average american family range from $500 per year to $5,000 per year.  They asked "why increase the tax burden people are paying when times are tough?" One person (me-Erik Kritter**see footnote below) related a story about the regulatory burden at Tultex.  Specifically, how regulatory costs were what drove production jobs overseas (dividing the labor rate by the # of unite produced showed that Americans were more productive but when the cost of regulatory compliance was added in the overseas worker was more productive) and that 'Cap & Trade' would ultimately do nothing more than increase our overly high regulatory burden and hurt Americans trying to compete with workers overseas who have little or no regulatory burden to carry."

Several members were also stongly opposed to the Hate Crimes act which they fear will result in preachers not being able to speak the true beliefs of their church about homosexuality. Reverend Walters of Franklin County was explicit in his concerns about this saying that this legislation was an infringement of free speach and freedom of religion. Others asked "how is it possible to prove what was in anyones head at any point in time." This imposibility makes for an unenforceable law they said.

Many of the protesters also voiced their concern that "America is loosing its way by moving away from its grounding in Christian values and beliefs." They cited instances of seemingly preferential treatment given to muslims a group prominent among other religions that are receiving preferential treatment by the government. They asked why in government schools and universities was government money being spent on Muslim prayer rooms and not being spent on Christian Prayer Rooms.  Some pointed out that no government money should go to either groups but acknowledged that the government seems to be giving preferential treatment to religions that are outside of the American mainstream (non-Christian religions).

Throughout it all Mr. Densmore and Mr. Mash listened patiently and attentively to the concerns and promised to inform the Senator about the meetings and the concerns before the end of the day.  Both representatives for the Senators declined to comment (or make a statement) and only said that their role was to simply relay information back to the senator and to serve as a liason with the citzens of communities that their offices are located in or near.

******In the interest of full disclosure I went to these meetings as both a reporter and as a concerned citizen. I agree with a great many things, almost everything, that the other protesters were concerned about. The one area I do disagree is what to do about the loss of Christian values within the country. As a Christian I am saddened by the decay in the moral structure of the country but I am also a Libertarian and I don't think the government should have a role in supporting any religion (even my own). Though I do hope that government officals share my religions beliefs.

I have done my best to simply report what happened but admittedly there was not much to report on from the Senator's staffmembers as they mostly listened, asked a few questions, took notes, and said only that they would relay the concerns and thanked the constituents for their time.

--Erik E. Kritter