Locals rally for public health option

It wasn’t a rowdy town hall meeting, a rally or a shouting match, but the national health care debate took center stage at a vigil Wednesday evening in Collidge Park.

A small group gathered to pay tribute to those without health insurance and to memorialize the life of former Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Sen. Kennedy, a longtime proponent of overhauling the nation’s health care system, died Aug. 25.

Organizers said they didn’t come to debate the issues, only to voice their support of providing a public option for all Americans and remember those who have died because of a lack of coverage.

“We won’t respond to hecklers,” said Anne Curtis, a coordinator with Moveon.org.

Linda Edwards Russell, a teacher at Tyner Middle Academy and a volunteer with Organizing for America, said she had acquired a permit to gather in the park. Several park rangers, security guards and a police officer watched over the gatherers.

There were no protesters, but there was one voice of dissidence at the park. Marchetta Cannon, whose husband works in the pressroom at the Chattanooga Times Free Press, stood several yards behind the candle-bearing gatherers to listen to what they had to say.

“They are giving no solutions — not one,” said Ms. Cannon, an opponent to a public option. “The government just does not need to be in the health care business.”

Roger A. Meyer attended Wednesday’s vigil to support the movement toward a public option. He said health care reform is the most important cause of his life, and he wanted to help people understand the issue more clearly.

“I just get disgusted with the lies that have been spread by people who should know better,” Mr. Meyer said.

The Rev. Jeff Brier, pastor at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga, spoke at the vigil and said that establishing justice was “a monumental task” that should be taken on incrementally.

“We must establish justice in our own backyard before we move on to the rest of the world,” he said.