‘Hands Off My Health Care’ rally held at DeMoss Hall

A ‘Hands Off My Health Care’ rally was held in DeMoss Hall Wednesday night. Here, Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr., welcomes Virginia Gov. George Allen and other supporters.

Last night’s inclement weather did not discourage a grassroots rally on campus led by the Virginia chapter of Americans for Prosperity and former Gov. George Allen.  The group’s red, white and blue-colored tour bus, clad with “Hands off my health care!” and “Joinpatientsfirst.com,” rolled into a dark and rainy DeMoss Hall lot, but stepping into the DeMoss lobby Allen and crew were met by an enthusiastic crowd that shared their concerns about health care reforms.

Allen was joined by Virginia Del. Kathy Byron (R-22), candidate for Virginia House of Delegates Scott Garrett (23^rd district) and Ben Marchi, Virginia state director of Americans for Prosperity.

Allen cited 2 Corinthians 3:17, emblazoned on the wall of the DeMoss lobby — “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” — but added that he was not just there for the “wonderful fired-up flames of Liberty, but liberty … freedom, independence, the American dream.” The reason that Americans for Prosperity is going around the country supporting grass roots rallies, he explained, is “to make sure that the people — the owners of the government — have a say, not just the sanctimonious social engineers in Washington or the United Nations.”

He cited the concern that so many Americans share — “whether our children will inherit the level of opportunity that we all inherited to achieve the American dream,” as future generations are loaded with mountains of debt.

A second-generation physician, Scott Garrett said, “I can tell you, categorically, you do not want a federal bureaucrat looking over my shoulder when you are asleep on my operating table.”

Marchi raised the red flag about current health care legislation, saying it will ration care, particularly to senior citizens, as it has in other countries like Canada and Great Britain. “We have to make sure that the Canadian system of health care doesn’t become the American system of health care,” he said.

The group solicited support for an initiative that would limit government control of health care reform, a movement that has already garnered more than 20,000 signatures.

Americans for Prosperity is a grassroots organization that works at all levels of government to promote entrepreneurship, fiscal and regulatory restraint, limited bureaucracy and fairness to our judicial system.