Congressman Robert Goodlatte

Congressman Bob Goodlatte, who represents the 6th District of Virginia in the US House Of Representatives, has scheduled a Town Hall meeting for Thursday, September 3 in Roanoke.

It will be held at Hidden Valley High School (5000 Titan Trail) in SW Roanoke County from 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Make plans now to attend – be ready with good questions for our congressman! We need to be sure he hears our voices before the House votes on Health Care Reform in September.

Bring your signs – and wear your Tea Party t-shirts!

He has also scheduled meetings in Bridgewater on 9/4 and Lynchburg on 9/12.

The meeting will be from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at The Franklin Center for Advanced Learning at 50 Claiborne Avenue (map).

It is scheduled as an open forum where citizens are encouraged to share their concerns with the Congressman. Do you have some thoughts you would like to share with Mr. Perriello?

After the meeting, the Congressman will meet one-on-one with constituents who need help dealing with the federal bureaucracy – sign up on site, first come, first served.

A number of members of the Roanoke Tea Party will be in attendance. If you would like to attend, remember to wear red, bring a hand made sign, and make your voice heard!

Why is there no tort reform in any of the House or Senate bills? This would be the easiest way to save about $200 billion dollars without changing anything. Doctors are forced to spend an enormous amount of money on mal-practice insurance due to the ever-growing number of frivolous lawsuits filed. The increase of cost to the doctor trickles down to the patient, which then increases the cost of medical insurance. It is a vicious unending cycle that tort reform could combat.

Howard Dean, former Democratic National Chairman, explained at a town hall meeting why tort reform was not part of the proposed health care reform bill. He said, “This is the answer from a doctor and a politician. Here’s why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put in it, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on. And that is the plain and simple truth.”  For once he told the truth. In the proposed bills, doctors and hospitals are to take a $500 billion hit on Medicare, while the lawyers get a free pass.

The United States Constitution, that has served us so well for over 200 years, is 4,000 words long. So why does any bill in Congress have to be over 1,100 pages long? When I write a Letter to the Editor of the Roanoke Times, I cannot have more than 200 words. Why don’t they pass a law that no bill can be longer than the Constitution? Then maybe they would have to choose their words carefully and actually create legislation that we could read without having lawyers at out side to understand it.

There are over 250 web sites from individual law firms trolling for perceived victims of medical malpractice, with over 100 reasons to sue doctors or hospitals for everything from Mesothelioma to birth defects. If former Senator John Edwards is the poster boy for trial lawyers, he is also a testimonial to the need for limiting caps on medical malpractice.  President Obama was booed by doctors in a speech to the AMA in Chicago on June 15 when he said he was not in favor of limiting outrageous jury awards against doctors or hospitals.

Lawyers are one of the only profession that Jesus publicly reproved.  In Luke 11:46 He said, “Woe to you lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers”. His words ring as true today as they did 2000 years ago.

A former governor of Wisconsin had it right, when he reportedly said “The only three things I want the federal government to do for me are – deliver the mail, keep any enemies out of my yard, and stay out of my life”.

The hall was filled beyond capacity, and Mr. Goodlatte spoke and answered questions for more than two hours. A wide range of opinions were shared, but we were heartened to note that not only was the overwhelming majority of the crowd opposed to the bills currently working through the Congress, but that the Congressman was opposed as well.

He warned about governmental interference in insurance choices and voiced grave concern about the fiscal disaster facing Medicare as the baby boom generation begins to reach retirement age.

Here is a video report from Carson Krislov on WDBJ.

We can’t say whether Ms. Krislov did so with any agenda in mind, but she did go through the audience and hand-pick people who had posed questions to the Congressman for her to interview.

The Roanoke Times has coverage of the meeting online that struck us as very accurate and complete. It included this list of suggestions from Goodlatte:

That prompted Goodlatte to cite some of the “targeted changes in our laws” that he’d like to see:

• Leveling the tax playing field to offer the same incentives for individuals that are now offered to large corporations.
• Tort reform that would reduce operating costs for doctors, as well as “defensive medicine” that results in unneeded tests and procedures.
• More transparency of health care information and costs.
• Expansion of pooled coverage that would allow individuals and small businesses to band together and take advantage of economies of scale, even across state lines.

WSLS also aired a report, which included an interview with Chip Tarbutton, a member of our interim Board – though they did misidentify him as “Tearbutton.”

If anyone has their own photos or video from this event, please contact us.