I ended up delivering a 5-minute speech at the Patients First stop in Burlington this evening. You can check out the local newspaper’s take on the event here. And be sure to enlarge the accompanying photo; you can see our posse (from left to right: Miss Heather, me, Gabriel, Zeke, Stephen, Houston, Auntie Merdy and Uncle Greg) on the right-hand side of the picture. More details, video and photos forthcoming.

Patients First, a project of American For Prosperity, began its 7-day, 30-plus-city bus tour of North Carolina yesterday and this morning’s first stop was right in our back yard.

Stephen and I, along with a lot of help from Miss Heather, took all the kids to the event. There were speakers from AFP, as well as the John Locke Foundation. There was pretty good attendance, especially considering that the rally took place at 9 a.m. on a Monday.

Tending toward the compulsive, Houston picks apart his sandwich and eats everything separately.

I was interviewed by a local TV station. Click here to check out the 2:37-minute video, which I think aired on the evening news. While holding Gabriel, I talked with the reporter, Bill O’Neil, for a couple of minutes. He asked me why I was opposed to government-run healthcare, if I thought the current system was broken, and if so, what were some things that could be done to reform it.

I was a bit nervous being on camera at first, but then quickly gained my strength, giving him the Cliff Notes version of our TTTS saga and answering all of his questions with informed ease. I don’t fancy myself particularly articulate — which is the reason I got into writing when I was younger and eventually majored in journalism in college, since the written word was the only way I could ever clearly convey my thoughts and opinions — but Stephen and Heather said I was on fire.

Yes, the twins are sleeping here, not wrestling. (You can see Zeke’s scars from his CCAM surgery.)

As you’ll see in the short news cast, they only aired a few seconds of the interview, which is fine. That’s how broadcast journalism works: short sound bites for the attention-deficient masses. However, I do find it questionable that O’Neil chose to tug at the viewers’ heart strings with the footage of Tanya, the freelance accountant.

Why focus so heavily on her personal narrative — she got laid off three years ago, and has two kids and no health insurance — and not mine? (Interestingly, O’Neil’s camera man told me that his wife had had TTTS and that his now-healthy twins are about to enter the first grade.)

Like father, like son: gaming runs in the family. 

Moreover, the coverage starts with the anchor calling the rally attendees “opponents of healthcare reform.” That description is completely disingenuous. I’m for reforming healthcare.

For instance, I’m for Tort Reform, which would greatly decrease doctors’ malpractice insurance premiums, thus, lowering the subsequent costs physicians pass on to their patients. And I’m for giving Americans simple tax credits and easy deductions for their healthcare expenses, thus, putting control back in people’s hands and money back in their wallets.

Just a couple of examples, but you’d never know that opponents to the “health control bill” (that’s what I like to call it) have any solutions offered up. Instead, the lame-stream media portray us as a bunch of uncaring, deluded fools, simply because we want the federal government out of our private business.

Gabriel flashes an adorable snaggle-tooth grin. (Click the image to see all the late July pics.)

O’Neil also reported that rally speakers “target seniors, spreading fear.” How biased a statement is that? Fact: Dr. David Blumenthal, one of Obama’s healthcare advisors, is on record saying that slowing medical innovation as a way to control medical spending. Screw grandpa’s hip replacement and granny’s angioplasty.

Another fact: Another cost-cutting measure, as suggested by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (so sad that the brother of the president’s chief of staff is named Zeke), is that doctors shouldn’t take the Hippocratic Oath so seriously; rather, doctors should try to achieve social justice through a practice he calls “communitarianism,” which reserves medical care for the non-disabled and denies it to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens.”

Translation: Selling geezers — among other “undesirables,” who will be determined by a federal medical panel of so-called experts — down the river of our grand socialist utopia. It’s obvious that under Obamacare, we aren’t all equal under the law.

Zeke likes the independence of sitting up and playing with toys.

Luckily, I may have the opportunity to speak at an upcoming rally. After chatting with an AFP intern and giving her my contact info, one of the organizers left a phone message for me, saying that he was interested in having me share my story with other Patients First supporters. I’ve since left him a couple voice mails, so hopefully he’ll call me back soon.