The debate over health care has reached a fevered pitch in our nation’s capital.  Over the last several months, millions of Americans have spoken out at town halls, have called and written in to the White House, and have even made personal visits to their members of Congress to express their strong opposition to government run health care.  Yet Speaker Pelosi has once again ignored their voices.

Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill H.R. 3962 was drafted without committee hearings or markups behind closed doors by Speaker Pelosi and a very limited number of her inner-circle.  Weighing in at more than 2,000 pages, Pelosi’s bill will cost the American taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next ten years.

Real reform of our health care system is needed.  We must help those who want health insurance but cannot afford it.  We must expand access to health care in rural America.  We must fix our medical malpractice laws so that doctors can focus on saving patients rather than paying lawyers.  And we must expand our investments in preventative care.  However, that doesn’t mean we should throw out the car because it has a soft tire.  This country still has the best doctors, the best treatments, the best researches, and the best hospitals in the world.  Improvements need to be made, but not at the cost of potentially destroying our current health care system, saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, decreasing our standard of care, and burdening American families and small businesses with $729.5 billion in new taxes.

I will continue to oppose Speaker Pelosi’s government run health care legislation and any legislation that comes before Congress that includes a public option.

Congressman Frank Lucas represents Oklahoma’s Third Congressional District.  For more information, visit his website at www.house.gov/lucas.

You gotta hand it to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post.

Really, the town hall angst is really just a media conspiracy to make Obama and liberals look bad.

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?

Uh-huh. So are the tanking poll numbers, I guess.

UPDATED: It seems the Democratic Party has a new town hall strategy: do not have them.

Or, in the case of one Blue Dog, don’t show up in your district.

Or if you have a town hall meeting, have it in a union hall and give only a select group of folks 24 hours notice.

Here are the comments (below) from the enterprising ColdWarrior RedStater — which are too good not to include prior to the video:

Well, it’s not much of an update. Just called his office again to find out when he was going to have a town hall meeting with real constituents like me. Answer: he won’t. Was he in the office? No. Would he be in the office tomorrow? No, he would be in meetings. I asked to be included. Nope. Why not? Not open to the public. NONE of his meetings during the recess are open to the public. The only “town hall” he’ll have is a telephone conference call.

I told Tiffany, his staffer, that I was again making a request to meet with him face to face. And I reminded her I had made this request many times over the past few months.

I also let her know that Harry was becoming infamous as one of the “Milk Carton” Democrats who apparently are afraid of their constituents and prefer to be “missing.” I also chuckled that ol’ Harry might find in the future that this type of constituent “service” might backfire in terms of getting himself reelected.

Do you, too, have a “Milk Carton Democrat” as one or more of your elected representatives in the House and Senate?

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

Here is the video:

After a series of unsuccessful requests to arrange a town hall over the August recess with Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey (CO-4), grassroots organizers opted instead to host their own health care town hall in the congresswoman’s absence – complete with an empty chair and placard for the reticent Markey.

The Northern Colorado Townhall Committee, who say their objective is to “provide a forum” for the voters of Northern Colorado, announced today they would hold a health care town hall on August 25th, and extended an open invitation to Representative Markey to moderate the event.

“With the August recess nearly half way over, we can’t wait any longer,” said the group’s founder, Kelly Trosper. “When other Reps across the nation are adding extra meetings, we still don’t have a schedule from her. This is a forum to discuss urgent topics, to include Health Care reform. We’re having to set one up ourselves, because our Rep isn’t making herself available.”

But this afternoon, following the public outcry and impressive political theater, Markey’s staff announced a town hall blitz, featuring 11 public forums on health care reform.

Greg Merton, a spokesman for the townhall committee, remains skeptical of Markey’s new-found interest in dialogue, and points to a local news report where Markey’s staff obfuscated on the matter last night, saying no details on the Congresswoman’s events would be made public for at least another week.

Confronted with the prospect of engaging in a dialogue with unhappy constituents, Democratic members of Congress have begun employing questionable tactics to limit access to town hall, some staffing the forums with supporters, while others still requiring photo identification to verify residency. While Congressional Democrats routinely demagogue the latter practice as it relates to voting, arguing it disenfranchises poor and minority voters, they seemingly have no problem disenfranchising low- and middle-income families concerned with the future of health care in the United States.

Concerned Markey may chart a similar course of action, Merton says his group intends to keep the August 25th event on-the-books until they “find out the ‘rules of engagement’” for the Congresswoman’s other events.

“We appreciate the small victory for democracy,” Merton says, adding, “but we’ll be keeping the date so we can be sure to be heard.”

Markey’s staff did not return an immediate request for comment.

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This just in from Politico’s Andy Barr:

Hoping to recapture the grassroots energy of last month’s “tea parties,” Republican Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas will host a tele-town hall Thursday that’s being dubbed “Tea Party 2.0.”

The Republican Governors Association said it is expecting 30,000 people to participate in the town hall, which will take place roughly one month after the much-publicized anti-tax tea party rallies held in hundreds of locations across the country on April 15, the tax filing deadline.

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