Voters Protest Outside Claire McCaskill’s Office |

Just under a hundred protesters assembled on lunch break outside of Senator Claire McCaskill’s Delmar office. Constituents braved the frigid temperatures to voice their opposition to Harry Reid’s health care legislation. Concerns cited included the penalty (and possible jail time) for those who refuse to purchase government care; the $8 billion in cuts from hospice; the Medicare expansion (as the system is already busted); the exponential increase to the deficit; and many others.

I went with a group of protesters inside Senator McCaskill’s office and spoke to the senator’s representatives. I also offered to ask questions on behalf of those following the protest via Twitter. I and others reminded staffers that the majority of Americans emphatically do not support this bill – in fact, support for Sen. McCaskill is slipping due to her support of it – and that this bill is a threat to individual liberty. I took care to remind them that we are not against health care reform, to the contrary; however, we cannot support this legislation as it aims to ration care to control costs instead of tackle things like tort reform, which the CBO said would save $54 billion a year.

I hope the senator is listening.

I’d like to thank McCaskill’s staffers for their courteous manner and their willingness to listen to constituents. I hope that for the sake of their jobs after 2012, their boss does the same.

Photos from the event: