Thousands of opponents of the Democrats’ health care legislation are gathered outside the Capitol, for a noon news conference and rally led by Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, and the chants are already underway, echoing across the Mall.

“Kill the bill!” they are shouting. “Kill the bill!”

A series of spot interviews suggests that the protesters have come to Washington from all across the county – Texas, Ohio, Oregon and the greater Washington area. It’s a generally older crowd, many in their 50s and 60s, predominantly, white, and many self-identified as Christians. They are fiercely conservative and deeply skeptical of the government, many of them deeply opposed to abortion rights.

“The government couldn’t even get the shots out,” said Karen Ambrose of Sunbury, Ohio, ridiculing the government’s efforts to vaccinate people for the H1N1 flu as an example of what government-run health care would look like. “Let’s just get the government out of all this.”

The crowd is waving signs, some predictable, others inventive. “No Socialistic Health Care.” “Sweeping Away Socialism One Democrat at a Time.” “Politicians Lie, Patients Die” “You lie!”
“All lies”

Jerry Hershberger, a market representative for an automotive company for Flower Mountain, Texas, said he flew up just to protest the health care bill. “A little expense now compared to a lot of expense later,” he said, explaining why the cost of the trip was worth it to him.

Mr. Hershberger, like many of the demonstrators, repeated some of the most common conservative and Republican talking points heard repeatedly on Fox News. “It’s not bipartisan,” he said, standing outside the Capitol wearing a Texas Longhorns baseball cap. “They are doing it behind closed doors.” He added: “It’s going to drive us into a super-deficit.”

Mr. Hershberger, who has health insurance through his employer, said that he believed some changes were needed to the health care system, but that Democrats were going about the process all wrong. “Scrap all this, start from the beginning, bring in the conservatives, the Republicans and the Democrats and see what we need to do to care for the 12 to 14 million people who really need insurance.”

Read the Full Post at the Prescriptions blog.