Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Lawmakers are calling on Americans to storm the Capitol on Thursday in an "Emergency House Call on Congress" to stop the House from passing the Democrats' health-care bill this week.

A group of legislators led by Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., will be holding an emergency town-hall meeting outside the Capitol at 12 p.m. to protest the health-care bill set to hit the House floor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated that a vote on the bill could take place as soon as Thursday.

Bachmann told WND she is urging citizens to come to Washington and "pay an emergency House call to Congress."

"This is the most effective way we have to kill socialized medicine and to do it this week," she said. "Nothing is more effective at reaching a congressman than having a citizen come to Washington, D.C. – not asking for a handout, not asking for tax money, not asking to take some liberty away from somebody else, but just asking for freedom."

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She said the American people spoke loud and clear this summer, telling Congress they don't want "cradle-to-grave takeover of health care." According to Rasmussen Reports, a full 54 percent of voters are now opposed to the House version of health-care reform. Only 23 percent of all voters strongly support the plan while nearly twice as many, or 44 percent, expressed strong opposition.

"We saw tea parties. We saw the 9/12 movement where literally hundreds of thousands of Americans, if not more, all converged on the Capitol on a Saturday. People did this to get the attention of their members of Congress," Bachmann said. "This is the week when the decision will be made about whether we will choose liberty or tyranny, whether we will choose socialized medicine or a free market."

Actor John Voight and "Liberty and Tyranny" author Mark Levin have volunteered to come and speak at the event. Dr. Betsy McCaughey, former New York lieutenant governor and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, will speak as well.

Bachmann cited a study by William Boyes, an economics professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business

at Arizona State University, who estimated in July that the federal government has taken ownership or control of one-third of the private economy.

"Now if President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are successful with this health bill, then that would be an additional 18 percent of the private economy the government would own or control," she said. "With more than 50 percent of the private economy controlled by the government, you can no longer say with a straight face that we're a free-market, capitalist system."

She noted that Pelosi has pledged to give the public only three days to review the legislation, a timeframe she called a "tremendous insult to the American people."

The current version of the bill now numbers nearly 2,000 pages.

"The final bill will come out tonight," Bachmann said. "I have heard through the grapevine that we may have another 800 pages. Clearly the liberals who wrote it are ashamed of their own bill. They're ashamed to have the American people know what's in it."

She continued, "If they were proud of it, they would want everyone to know what's in it, and they would want everyone discussing the contents of this bill on television, in the newspapers, in magazines, on radio shows and over cups of coffee."

President Obama promised during his campaign that health-care negotiations would occur in the public eye and be broadcast on C-SPAN.

"Not only were the negotiations not broadcast, negotiations essentially didn't even occur between Democrats and Republicans for all practical purposes," Bachmann said. "Democrats even changed the locks on doors on committee rooms here in Washington and kept members of Congress out. This is clearly a one-party bill."

Bachmann told WND this is one example of Obama making good on his campaign promise to "transform America."

"That's exactly what he's doing. But he's transforming it away from the free-market republic that our founders gave us. He's transforming us into a government-controlled economy," she said. "That's not what I believe the majority of the American people are asking their government to do. That's why this is so crucial."

She noted that Pelosi may have garnered the 218 votes necessary to pass the legislation this week.

"It appears they plan to push it through, and unless the American people push back, unless they take the extraordinary step of coming to Washington at noon on Thursday, this bill will go through," Bachmann said. "We Republicans can't stop the passage. But with resistance from the American people, I am fully confident it can be defeated."

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, echoed Bachmann's request in an interview with WND's Radio America.

"Come to Washington to save your freedom," he said. "It's the only thing that's going to change this."

Bachmann is inviting citizens to "come to Washington, D.C. by the carload" and attend the meeting on the west steps of the Capitol. She asks that attendees bring video cameras and office numbers and phone numbers of their representatives so they can find them and "get them on video saying how they will vote."

She urged, "Come to Washington, D.C., find your member of Congress, look into the whites of their eyes and tell them, 'Keep your hands off of my health care. This is not what I sent you to Washington to do. You are taking away my fundamental freedoms without my consent.'"

(Editor's note: Concerned individuals may contact their respective representatives and senators.)

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