In telephone townhall, Perriello explains vote

Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, on Thursday held a telephone townhall with more than 8,000 participants to explain his vote in favor of the $1.2 trillion health-care overhaul bill approved by the House.

Meantime, Rep. Glenn Nye, D-2nd, took heat from the left, as a progressive group launched an online ad campaign accusing him of “betraying” the Democratic Party by voting against the health-care bill.

Perriello was one of four Virginia Democrats who voted in favor of the bill late Saturday night. Nye was one of the two Democrats who joined the five Virginia Republicans in voting against the measure.

Perriello said during the phone meeting that he voted for the bill because he thinks it will reduce the deficit, bring down the cost of insurance premiums, extend the solvency of Medicare and reduce a coverage gap in the federal prescription-drug program.

Perriello fielded about 15 calls from constituents. Some opposed the bill; others backed it or had questions about specific provisions.

“I don’t expect everyone to be satisfied with the call tonight, or the debate,” he said. But “we will never balance the budget in this country without getting health-care costs under control.”

He told one caller that given the increasing cost of insurance premiums: “the biggest tax we could put on the American people is doing nothing about health care.”

Perriello said that when he held 21 townhall meetings in August he recognized that “there was going to be nothing that made everybody happy.”

Supporters of Organizing for America, a grass-roots project of the Democratic National Committee, gathered at Perriello’s Charlottesville office Thursday to thank him for backing the health-care package. Today they will meet at Perriello’s Martinsville office.