Local Democrats to host health care town hall meeting

Local Democrats are hosting a town hall meeting about health care at 7 p.m. tonight at 2101 Texas Blvd., Texarkana, Texas. Doors will open at 6 p.m.
"We're holding a missing person's town hall meeting on the subject of health care," said David Watkins, vice chairman of Bowie County, Texas, Democrats, who are sponsoring the talk with their Miller County, Ark., counterparts.
Watkins said Bowie County Democrats have invited U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, to attend a town hall meeting in this area several times.
"We've been contacting John Ratcliffe for the last three months trying to get him to come to a town hall meeting and he won't. Several times we've gone to the local office and spoke with his office representative and they told us he wasn't going to be in town any time soon. Last week we found out he planned secret visit (here) and we showed up to one of the locations where he was. He won't be there (at tonight's meeting) and no one from his office will either," Watkins said.
Ratcliffe openly announced last week's visit, and he has not been avoiding constituents in any way, his spokesperson Rachel Stephens said. It is "unfortunate" that the Democrat groups scheduled their town hall for tonight, when Ratcliffe is obliged to be in Washington, D.C., she said.
Ratcliffe will hold a telephone town hall meeting Thursday and Stephens encouraged his constituents to register for it at his website, ratcliffe.house.gov/telephone-town-hall-sign. Scheduling an in-person town hall is "not a matter of if but when," she said.
There will be several local experts in health care at tonight's town hall meeting.
"We have a number of panelists and they'll be speaking based on what they know about the Affordable Care Act," Watkins said.
The public is invited to attend.
"It's going to be a pretty good program," Watkins said. "People who attend are going to get clarity. It's a bipartisan event. Those who are pro-ACA and anti-ACA, any questions they have about policy and how it works they'll be able to ask this panel. The panel will be able to provide clarity on how they understand the legalities of it and people will be able to walk away with their own judgment based on information from the experts."
"We're expecting a really big turnout. We have people coming from as far away as Longview and Paris. People from all over John Ratcliffe's district are considering coming to this event. We're going to have a good turnout and not just from our community," Watkins said.