Local Opposition to the President’s Health Care Reform Plan

Johnson City, Tenn.—Many of the questions we got from viewers via e-mail and on Facebook were people wondering, how the government can control individual health care plans. A group called the 10th Amendment Foundation is protesting today on that exact basis.
    “There is absolutely nothing in the constitution that says anything about the Federal government getting involved in insurance or in health care,“ says president, Strother Smith.
    The Abingdon based group posted billboards in Bristol and in Abingdon welcoming the president, but pleading their case. They organized in front of Kroger in Bristol, to protest the president’s plan, because they say that government control of health care violates the tenth amendment.
    The tenth amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.“
    It’s not just grass roots protests. Government officials from our region are standing up against the president’s health care plans, as well.
    11 connects talked with Tennessee House Representative Phil Roe who is in Washington, via satellite.
    Roe thinks that key ways to increase affordability and decrease costs are:
to allow individuals to the same tax deduction availability as larger companies; to get rid of state-lines when it comes to insurance plans; and to encourage co-operatives between individuals with similar lifestyles.
    Roe said he believes individuals who get their insurance from their jobs should be able to take that insurance with them as they lose jobs or change companies, and that a major way to reduce costs wold be to reform physician liability, cutting back on massive costs doctors pay for defensive medicine.

Click on the icon above for more from Congressman Roe.