Alex Brandon/Associated Press A crowd of health care protesters in front of the Capitol on Thursday.Thousands of opponents of the Democrats’ health care legislation are gathered outside the Capitol, for a noon news conference and rally led by Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, and the chants are already under way, echoing across the Mall.
“Kill the bill!” they are shouting. “Kill the bill!”
A series of spot interviews suggests that the protesters have come to Washington from all across the country – Texas, Ohio, Oregon and the greater Washington area. It’s a generally older crowd, many in their 50s and 60s, predominantly, white, and many self-identified as Christians. They are fiercely conservative and deeply skeptical of the government, many of them adamantly opposed to abortion rights.
“The government couldn’t even get the shots out,” said Karen Ambrose of Sunbury, Ohio, ridiculing the government’s efforts to vaccinate people for the H1N1 flu as an example of what government-run health care would look like. “Let’s just get the government out of all this.”
The crowd is waving signs, some predictable, others inventive.
“No Socialistic Health Care.” “Sweeping Away Socialism One Democrat at a Time.” “Politicians Lie, Patients Die”
“You lie!”
“All lies”
Jerry Hershberger, a market representative for an automotive company from Flower Mound, Tex., said he flew up just to protest the health care bill. “A little expense now compared to a lot of expense later,”
he said, explaining why the cost of the trip was worth it to him.
Kris Connor/Getty Images Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, during an anti-health care reform rally on Thursday in Washington.Mr. Hershberger, like many of the demonstrators, repeated some of the most common conservative and Republican talking points heard repeatedly on Fox News. “It’s not bipartisan,” he said, standing outside the Capitol wearing a Texas Longhorns baseball cap. “They are doing it behind closed doors.” He added: “It’s going to drive us into a super-deficit.”
Mr. Hershberger, who has health insurance through his employer, said that he believed some changes were needed to the health care system, but that Democrats were going about the process all wrong. “Scrap all this, start from the beginning, bring in the conservatives, the Republicans and the Democrats and see what we need to do to care for the 12 to 14 million people who really need insurance.”
Asked what he thought about the three-month effort by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, work with Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee to draft a bipartisan bill, Mr. Hershberger dismissed it, saying the resulting legislation proved the process had failed. “It doesn’t reflect what we want,” he said.
“Can you hear us now?” the crowd chanted behind him.
Mr. Hershberger said he was hoping to make a difference. “I literally got off my butt yesterday,” he said. “We might have an impact. A politician can’t be a politician if they get voted out of office.”
Many of the demonstrators, like Judith Garloch of Newark, Ohio, said they were opposed to an increasing government role in the health care. Many said they feared cuts to the Medicare program for Americans 65 and over. Many described themselves as conservative and opposed to higher taxes.
“We support our country and we’re patriots,” Ms. Garloch said. “And I don’t want my health care to be changed.”
Ms. Garloch, who has a combination of Medicare and private coverage, said insurance should be sold across state lines to increase competition.
But Ms. Garloch, like many in the crowd who while visibly angry. could not articulate the main problems in the health care system or how they should be solved.
Some of the same people warning of too much government spending also complained that Medicare does not provide sufficient coverage.
Ms. Garloch dismissed suggestions that some hospitals, like the Cleveland Clinic in her home state, had figured out ways to provide higher-quality medical outcomes at lower cost, indicating that there might be ways to cut costs without sacrificing patient care.
Her brother-in-law worked at the Cleveland Clinic for several years. “There’s a lot of bureaucracy there,” she said. “You don’t get everything you want.”
As for how to fix the health care system, she said “I think we need to fix what’s wrong now – I think we need to put a cap on the malpractice lawsuits. I just can’t see how adding more things, power to the government is going to help anything.”
Nearby, Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, who recently said the Democrats’ health care legislation was more frightening to her than terrorists, worked the crowd, shaking hands and offering warm greetings. It is a clear fall day, with a crisp breeze.
Alan R. Davis, of Chillicothe, Ohio, said he had a professional background in health care finance, and was attending the protest because of his deep concerns about that nation’s staggering debt. “The country is going broke,” he said.
As for controlling medical costs, Mr. Davis did not have any ready solutions. He said that last December, his wife, Jennifer, had a heart transplant at the Cleveland Clinic. But he said he had no idea what it had cost. Her insurance coverage has an annual deductible of $4,000. After that, he said, everything was covered “100 percent.”
Mr. Davis said he did not trust Democrats’ assertions that the health care bill would be deficit neutral. “Whether it’s deficit neutral at this stage is someone’s guess, it’s an educated guess,” he said.
Mr. Davis said Americans needed to think more about the quality of life, rather than the length of life. He said that he and his wife had just such a discussion before she went forward with her heart transplant, at age 55.
Art Scevola, a financial consultant from Portland, Ore., said that he felt a mission to come to Washington. “It’s time to make a stand,” he said. “We want to see limited government, not more taxes put in our face. We don’t believe our health care system entirely broken. We need to slow down, stop and start over with this legislation.”
Mr. Scevola said that he had health insurance through his employer. “Kaiser Permanente,” he said proudly. “They are the best on the West Coast.”
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