Posted on 08/20/2009 5:18:25 PM PDT by savedbygrace
Local residents packed the Bartlesville Community Center on Thursday to attend a town hall meeting held by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn.
Originally slated for the Community Room, large crowds forced the BCC to move the meeting into the larger Performing Arts auditorium. Coburn commented that his last town hall meeting netted about 150 visitors. Thursday’s meeting brought in excess of 1,000 citizens.
Although attendees were passionate about their concerns, the crowd was sedate compared to national reports of town hall meetings gone bad. Audience members took turns asking questions or stating comments on topics including health care, social security and Medicare, immigration, interrogation techniques, biased media, tort reform, gun control, mandatory vaccination and prescription drug costs.
Coburn said the country could solve its health care problem but not by adding trillions to the government deficit and decreasing the standard of living for future generations.
“I will do everything in my power to kill this puppy...” said Coburn, earning a standing ovation.
He said many of today’s problems could be solved with incentives, not mandates from the government.
For example, he said Safeway is paying its employees to lose weight and lower their cholesterol. In return, the company is saving on its health insurance payout.
Another way health costs could be reduced, he said, would be to streamline the amount of time and money the FDA spends on new drug approvals.
He also said 8 percent of healthcare expense could be attributed to the cost of malpractice suits.
“With tort reform, those costs could be cut in half overnight,” said Coburn.
Coburn encouraged the crowd to contact their friends and family in other states and talk to them about the issues and above all, stay informed. He said people must work to reduce the expansive government.
Oklahoma has the two best Senators in D. C.
would you please come to Indiana and bring them with you? :0)
Sure beats the he!! out of Minnesota!
D@mn I like living here! : - D
You really do. I just love Tom Coburn. What a gem of an American he is.
And of course his meeting wasn’t contentious. He’s on their side and he doesn’t lie to them. That’s the difference.
If you supply enough wise conservative voters, you can have your own.
;-)
Actually, I'm jealous! :)
Incentives promote, mandates enslave.
Tom you ARE the one!
He absolutely brought down the house when he said that. The passion in his entire being was overwhelming and the entire audience felt those words as much as they heard them.
It was a shining moment.
Ping!
Yes, we do. There were a half dozen questioners who began their question by thanking him for all he does for us.
Lot of love in that room this afternoon.
Nice! Any video?
Senator Coburn, if your reading this, here’s one Yankee that thinks you rock! Keep it up sir!
That's what happens when a Senator is being honest with his constituents instead of trying to bamboozle them.
I second that! We are so fortunate to have two Senators from Oklahoma that fight for all of us. Inhofe is leading the charge against Cap and Trade and Coburn against Healthcare. You would think that since Dr. Tom is a medical doctor that his words would carry some weight but not with the socialist running our Country.
I am so happy to see the senior citizens out and being vocal. Last Town Hall I went to of Dr. Tom’s there may have been 50 people there and that’s a stretch.
oh we have plenty of wise conservative voters, we also have indianapolis, south bend, and the peoples republic of bloomington. unfortunately they tend to weigh a bit more sometimes. then we have the problem of not having any really good decent, honest, conservatives to vote for. we get rino lugar, and bayh.
Oh, no! Now PETA will have their cotton grannies in a wad.
Same wad, different day. ; )
Yeah, if you click on the link at the top, you’ll see a video on the right.
For some reason, the guy doing that video decided to begin by interviewing a teenager who apparently slept through the meeting and didn’t hear what actually went on.
He explained how he came to get the nickname Dr. No.
At the beginning of each session, he writes a letter to all the other Senators and tells then that if they file any bills that are not authorized by Art I Sec 8, he will put a hold on the bills.
He said the worst thing about earmarks is not the money they waste. He said it’s the fact that any rep or Senator that puts an earmark in a bill (after the fact) is doing so to pay back a contributor, and then he is more interested in the earmark than the cost of the legislation it’s attached to. He then votes for the earmark, rather than the bill. Therefore, earmarks cost us much more than the individual cost of the earmarks.
Thanks!
Bless his heart.
We are saddled w/a RINO who voted for the wise Latina, and McCas-Kill.
I used to live in Texas, but I also worked a lot in Oklahoma. We had a saying: “Oklahoma is OK!”.
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ConstituentServices.PorkBusters
That is his site for Pork Busters and it has a lot of good info. He understands the Constitution which I think a lot of members of Congress pay ZERO attention.
Brand new state! Brand new state, gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters,
Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and Temayters!
Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom,
Plen’y of air and plen’y of room,
Plen’y of room to swing a rope!
Plen’y of heart and plen’y of hope.
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain,
And the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, ev’ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk makin’ lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say—Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-ee ay!
We’re only sayin’ You’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma—O.K.
You're just bragging. Why I've got Boxer and Feinstein. Don't you think they should be A-List material? Snort.
You are blessed. Thanks for sharing.
We have Carper and Kaufman here in Delaware.
But, I attended the Mike Castle Town Hall on June 30th in Georgetown—THE Town Hall that started it all!
I want my country back!
It's nice to be able to talk to other people and not have to worry about saying something wrong. I even get to listen to Rush on the radio at work. :)
You must not work for one of the public school districts.
He confirmed what you are saying........
Very nice job SBG!
Thanks!!
I work in insurance.
Dr TOM COBURN = present day Lincoln , he is a Paragon of integrity, knowledge, intelligence and wisdom and we need him to run for President in 2012
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