Protesters in Bristol: Health care not broken, keep hands off

BRISTOL, Va. – Stephen Rimer tried calling his senators’ offices during a Tuesday night rally so he could tell them to vote against President Barack Obama’s health care plan.
“I don’t think the government is capable of overseeing health care with any fiscal responsibility at all,” said Rimer, who hails from Duffield, Va.
But Rimer couldn’t get through to U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb, D-Va., when he called their offices from the rally. Instead, he said, he got messages reporting that all lines were busy, the voice mail inbox was full and he should call back later.
“That’s a good sign,” Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips said at the rally, which drew a crowd of 70 people to Cumberland Square Park despite the evening rain. Phillips said the encumbered phone system meant Warner had already received plenty of calls voicing opposition to the president’s health care plan.
With chapters in 24 states, including Virginia, AFP is a grassroots group that advocates for fiscal and regulatory restraint. Phillips said the group scheduled Tuesday’s rally long before any of its staff knew Obama was due in Bristol to talk about his health care plan at the Midway Street Kroger this afternoon.
The national group is working closely with local activists to ensure that the president, his staff and the national media expected for today’s event know that not everyone in town agrees with what Obama has to say.
“We just want to let him know that we are not happy with his program,” said Strother Smith, president of the 10th Amendment Foundation, a local non-profit group pushed for the support of that amendment and is opposed to the president’s health care plan.
Smith’s group and AFP have been organizing a counter-rally to Obama’s visit since the trip was announced Saturday night. While they still have some details to work out, the two groups said they plan to kick off the event at 3 p.m. today either outside the Kroger or in a nearby church parking lot.
Smith predicts the people who are expected to turn out against Obama’s plan will outnumber those who turn out in favor of it by 10-1.
AFP’s Virginia State Director Ben Marchi said today’s event will blend perfectly into a statewide bus tour that his organization has been running to urge Virginia’s lawmakers to vote against Obama’s health care plan.
“We view this as the biggest power grab by government in our lifetimes,” Marchi said when asked what he thought about Obama’s health care plan.
He said AFP’s top problems with the plan are the public option – a government-subsidized alternative to private health care coverage – and a proposed requirement that people over 65 go through end of life counseling sessions. Marchi said a growing number of Virginian’s share his organization’s stance on the issue. Similar rallies held Tuesday in Stuart and Wytheville drew crowds of 100 and 150 people, he said.
At each of the stops, rally participants were encouraged to call their representatives and senators in Washington, D.C., to voice their opposition to the plan and to sign a petition that Marchi said has already received thousands of signatures.
The bus tour has stops scheduled in Gate City and Norton today before it heads back to Bristol for the Obama protest this afternoon, Marchi said, adding that the president’s coming and “we’re going to tell him to take these bad policies back to Washington.”
Marchi’s group is not the only one planning a rally in the wake of Obama’s visit. The Service Employees International Union’s Virginia Change that Works Campaign is planning an event to support Obama’s health care plan – at 1:30 p.m. today at the former Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop at 20 Wagner Street, a location just two blocks from the Midway Street Kroger. The event will feature a life-size graph indicating what health care could cost if Obama’s plan fails to pass, campaign spokesman Jason Bane said.

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