While many Senate Democrats where hopeful that their Republican peers would back President Barack Obama’s healthcare bill, last Wednesday morning.

On Dec. 8, after days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed to drop a government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation.

However, many local citizens have banded together to speak out against the proposed “Obama Care,” calling it unsafe and complicated.

“Number one, we can’t pay for it,” said Joseph Joyave, a pediatrician in Calhoun.

Joyave was one of two physicians who addressed the Tea Party of Gordon County, a group of Gordon County citizens who are rallying for reduced government spending.

Joyave addressed members of the Tea Party during their monthly meeting on Dec. 7.

“The problem is that if everyone has access to the same level of care all of a sudden, that money that has been used for specialty care gets diluted,” Joyave explained. “Very young patients, such as premature babies might not get the same level of specialty care.”

Joyave says “Obama Care” will create a new set of problems.

“Congress will then have to then look at cutting costs to healthcare,” Joyave said.

Joyave says he does have a very realistic outlook on the existing state of the nation’s healthcare system.

“Nobody should think our current medical system is perfect, but we are one of the top three in the world,” Joyave said. “That is because of competition.”

Joyave said that with the proposed system, pharmaceutical research companies would be limited in the amount of strides that can be made in the development of new medicines.

But the Tea Party’s concern is not limited to healthcare.

“We are upset, we want our lawmakers to stop making self-serving decisions. We want congress to make laws based on we as a people, not them as a congress,” said Jan Deems, organizer of the Gordon Tea Party.

Deems says the silent majority has been silent for too long.

“We are the ones who are supposed to be making these decisions,” Deems said.

One of the things the group emphasizes is open lines of communication between elected officials and constituents. During each meeting those in attendance are provided with a mailing list of every elected official in Gordon County, along with state and nationally elected officials.

“I think that as a country we are unhappy,” Deems said.

Deems and other members of the Gordon Tea Party attended a national march to the capitol in Washington D.C. this past September.

“There were more than 2 million people there, expressing that we as a nation have had enough,” Deems said.

Deems also said that part of the Tea Party’s national success is that is has appealed to the fiscally conservative.

The Gordon Tea Party will meet again on Jan. 11. For more information email teapartygordncty@aol.com