Patients First rally in OC

The Patients First bus tour finally made a stop on the Eastern Shore in Ocean City. While the Daily Times had a good writeup, there’s more to the story then they could cover in a few hundred words and a picture.

While the bus itself was a nice “hook” (as AFP head Tim Phillips put it), another aspect was the location. The T-Shirt Factory turned out to be a nice location with good visibility, obviously with a supportive owner who’s active in our local AFP chapter.

One goal of the tour was to fire up opposition to Obamacare and demonstrate to individual Congressmen in swing districts that a vote for Obamacare would be detrimental to their electoral health.

These petitions were among many informational items placed on the tables AFP had set up for those interested.

A few of the protesters even took to the street. Fortunately for me in taking the picture, the bus lane stayed clear most of the time.

First to speak was Maryland AFP head Dave Schwartz. He had an attentive audience.

Schwartz noted that the two AFP buses had traveled over 12,000 miles in 6 weeks and covered 30 states in their journey so far. (This bus was going on to Florida while the other was traveling through Pennsylvania.) In speaking about the health care debate it was apparent that the grassroots were talking and not the insurance companies. Dave also mentioned the 9-12 rally (which most of Monday’s attendees had also attended) as a “Woodstock for conservatives” but cautioned it “has to be the beginning” in this fight.

Another fact he alluded to was how poorly government estimates the costs of new programs – for example, the Medicare program which was estimated at its beginnings in 1966 to cost $9 billion by 1990 instead ended up costing over seven times that amount.

Dave then turned the microphone over to AFP President Tim Phillips, who also commented that 9-12 was “something I wanted to see my whole life” and that in this debate “we are flat out winning…we won July and August and we’re winning September too.” He pointed out that while we were taking the fight to Washington D.C. President Obama was running to his base in Minnesota.

But the challenge went beyond health care, instead it was to “take Washington over for a generation.”

At the moment, though, the debate is over health care. Phillips broke down the Patients First argument into three points.

One is the cost of what they are trying to do. Despite the claim by Obamacare advocates that their message isn’t getting through, there is no communication problem. The vast amount of tax revenue needed to fund Obamacare and the poor track record of government estimating simply scares people away from their solution.

Second was the aspect of rationing. “Let them bring Nancy Pelosi out,” said Phillips, “we know the truth.” As an example of rationing’s effect, AFP recently did a video featuring a Canadian resident who took a second mortgage out on her home to get treatment here in America for her brain tumor. And Tim added that, “I don’t need the government making quality of life decisions for us.”

Finally, while the rest of us have to endure long lines and rationing, President Obama and Congress will be exempt. Tim revealed that in the 3 years he worked on Capitol Hill for a Senator, he had the best health insurance package he’d ever had because of the plethora of choices he was allowed – an “unlimited buffet” of options. And Congress won’t give theirs up, despite attempts to make them do so.

Phillips concluded, “The other side is counting on us to lose interest (and) grow weary” – it was a slow-down approach. But if our goal was to be left alone by government, we had to be counterintuitive and get involved instead.

One extra package for Phillips to take to his next stop was the box of petitions collected in the First Congressional District. Since each petition could have multiple signers, those 1,100 sheets of paper represented many thousands of residents who urged Congress to scrap Obamacare and concentrate on less radical but necessary reforms.

Before we all left, there was this request for a group photo, minus about 5 of us who were taking pictures for various reasons.

Speaking of pictures, I have a leftover from the 9-12 rally I forgot to include yesterday – the souvenir sign I referred to.

I’ll hang on to it for future rallies, shoeprints and all. It seemed a shame that the lady (my guess) who put the time into making this didn’t take it back to wherever she came from. Rest assured I can put this orphaned sign to good use.