Tea Party Express Hits Health Insurance Reform

A cross country bus tour, called the tea party express has taken to the road in protest of health insurance reform. The bus tour includes cargo trucks and SUVs. The tea party express caravan started Sacramento, California on Friday. A focus of the protests includes concerns about health insurance reform.

Our Country Deserves Better, a political action committee is funding the Tea Party Express. The focus of the protestors has now turned to health insurance reform.

At a Tea Party Express event held on Saturday in Winnemucca, Nevada, Carolyn Rowe, wearing a T-shirt that said “Joke”, and showing Obama as the Joker from Batman said she fears that health insurance reform means she would lose her choice of doctors.

An earlier focus of the Tea Party Express was the economy, but now fears about health insurance reform are high on the agenda.

Supporters of health insurance reform also attended a Tea Party Express rally in park in Elko, Nevada just to see what is being said about Obama’s plan for health insurance reform. Nora Hatfield, one of the attendees said, "What I have heard today has all totally been negative. Nobody has given me a solution.”

Jeremy Bird, deputy director of Organizing for America, says media, especially cable news channels, focus on rowdy town hall meetings. According to Bird, "Supporters of reform are far outnumbering opponents. "And unfortunately, some of the 24-hour cable news echo chamber has focused on the small minority of folks who have tried to disrupt it."

The Tea Party Express will end with a Washington Rally on September 12. In addition to health insurance reform, the Tea Party Express is touting fears about “socialism” and “hidden agendas” from the Obama administration, as well as concerns about spending and economic stimulus packages. In the meantime, the Obama administration is working hard to dispel fears and myths about health insurance reform, saying the economy will benefit in the long run, as will the health of Americans who cannot afford health insurance coverage.

CNN