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GREENSBORO — With U.S. House members already home for their summer recess and the Senate soon to follow, the battle over health care reform is moving to the home front.

Case in point: the parking lot outside the Shoney’s restaurant near Piedmont Triad International Airport on Monday morning.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until the government offers it for free,” said Dallas Woodhouse, who leads the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity. Woodhouse got shouts of approval from the crowd as he exhorted them to contact their congressmen and resist the ongoing congressional effort to write a health care reform bill.

“Did anybody see in Katrina all those thirsty people that the U.S. government couldn’t figure a way to get water to?” Woodhouse asked. “Do we want those people in our exam rooms?”

The crowd of more than 100 shouted back “No!”

Woodhouse continued: “Do we want those people deciding whether our grandmother gets a hip, whether our grandfather gets a knee, or whether we get the heart medicine that we need?”

Woodhouse’s crowd was mostly older folks, although there were at least some who took time off from work to rally to the cause.

“I see the government is trying to create a society of dependent people where they can control every aspect of your life. It scares me,” said Wynn Myers, 47, of High Point.

Myers, who works at a local photography business, said he hoped public action could scuttle Congress’ current health reform effort. He said health reform was needed but that it should focus on allowing people more choices in private insurance and keeping illegal immigrants off public health insurance rolls.

Many of those at the rally spoke about the health care reform plan, which bemuses many Democrats who support health care reform efforts.

“There is no plan at this point, no final plan certainly, at this point,” said Rep. Mel Watt, a Charlotte Democrat who represents parts of Greensboro. “So for people to be attacking a plan that doesn’t exist yet just shows they’re opposed to the whole concept of health care reform.”

There are three health care proposals floating around Congress, as well as the Obama administration laying out some guidelines of its own.

Sen. Kay Hagan laid out part of that political landscape in an Charlotte Observer op-ed piece over the weekend, saying that the Senate Finance Committee was now working on a way to pay for health care reform.

Although Hagan is seen as a potential swing vote on parts of health reform — Woodhouse said the Americans for Prosperity tour came to Greensboro first to make a point to Hagan — she wrote that the country can’t afford not to do a health care deal.

“Without action, health care costs will continue to soar, endangering our economic security,” she wrote.

And Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat who represents parts of Greensboro and Rockingham County, said that legislators would have to push back against what he described as misinformation being put forward by groups like this one.

One provision that has been particularly misconstrued, he said, would pay for doctors to talk with terminally ill patients about end-of-life issues.

“It is just howling-at-the-moon crazy to say that provision to allow for occasional end-of-life counseling ... is going to have people put down the way we put down an animal,” Miller said.

That idea was put out by Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Winston-Salem Republican, on the House floor last week. She was pitching her own health care reform proposal, which involved tax credits, and contrasting it with Democrats’ plans.

“It will bring down the cost of health care for all Americans ... and is pro-life, because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.”

Miller pushed back against her comments.

“They’re trying to sink the health care reform effort any way they can,” Miller said. “We’re paying almost twice as much for health care as we should. ... We’re paying close to one-fifth of our whole economy, when the rest of the developed world, prosperous countries, as spending one-tenth of their economies. Now the difference is not just going up into the atmosphere, it’s going into people’s pockets.

“And the people who have got that money going into their pockets are going to do everything they can to defeat reform so they can keep making the money that they’re making.”

House votes

Among recorded votes of interest taken on the House floor last week:

• HR 3269: Corporate and Financial Institution Compensation Fairness Act. The measure would give federal regulators the ability to restrict pay packages and bonuses for executives at financial institutions. It would also require a non-binding public vote of shareholders on “golden parachute” pay packages for top executives.The bill passed the House 237-185. Democrats Brad Miller and Mel Watt voted yes. Republicans Virginia Foxx and Howard Coble of Greensboro voted no.
• HR 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill would extend the Food and Drug Administrations authority over certain companies and farms, requiring many of them to pay a $500 annual registration fee to fund a new food safety program.The bill passed 283-142. Miller and Watt voted in favor. Coble and Foxx voted against.

Senate votes

Among recorded votes of interest in the Senate last week:

• HR 1383: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010. This is a $34 billion energy and water spending package. It would spend $6.5 billion on maintaining the country’snuclear stockpile. Other money would fund energy research. The measure passed 85-9.
  Sens. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, and Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, both voted yes.

• One amendment to HR 1383 would have required the country redistribute the federal government’s shares in General Motors and Chrysler to U.S. taxpayers. The measure failed 38-59. Burr voted for the amendment. Hagan voted against.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com