At Tuesday’s event in Delaware, this youngster enjoys coloring for change.

The Highway to Health Care RV pulled into Wilmington’s Rodney Square earlier today and was greeted by over 200 Delawareans who want real health care reform, capping two busy days that saw reformers from three generations come together with one call for change.

While some of our younger supporters used crayons to color their messages of support, the rest called and wrote to Sen. Carper and Rep. Castle urging them to support reform with a public health insurance option.

New Castle resident Claudette Sherwood is a child care provider who is among the 100,000 people in Delaware who don’t have health insurance. She said she’s struggling to pay off a $1600 bill as a result of a recent visit to the emergency room. WDEL 1150-AM has more:

Today’s stop in Wilmington follows yesterday’s successful event in Charlottesville, VA, where another large crowd gathered to support President Obama’s plan for health care reform. NBC-29 spoke with supporters there including recent U.Va graduate Melissa McCrumb:

“I’m working two jobs, for two small businesses. I work with a bunch of bright, young, energetic people and not a single one of us has health care. I think it’s absolutely absurd that we are at the mercy of insurance companies that care more about turning a dime, than our health.”

The tour is now rolling up the coast and will stop in Portland and Bangor, ME, on Wednesday.

By the way, if you’d like to get out your crayons and color like the kids in Wilmington, download our health care reform coloring pages (104k PDF) and print your own copy.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran a report yesterday on our Highway to Health Care event in front of the state Capitol in Little Rock — and the importance of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s support of a public option. In the article, “Union backs public health-care plan during rally” (subscription-only), AFSCME’s Blaine Rummel pointed out that Lincoln has said she’s open to it.

He continued:

“If we allow [government] to compete with private insurance companies, it’s going to force private insurance companies to lower premiums,” Rummel said.

He said Obama’s plan will ensure that people keep coverage when they change jobs.

Sen. Lincoln sits on the Senate Finance Committee, which is playing a key role in shaping health care legislation. She has said she believes individuals should be given choices when it comes to health insurance. In a July guest column in the Democrat-Gazette, Lincoln said “Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals of a public plan.”

Rummel said the association wanted to provide a contrast to the “mob mentality” of protesters during recent public forums. Its literature has a rock ‘n’ roll theme.

There was no mob in Little Rock, as you can see in this photo — just a group of ordinary Americans who want to make their voices heard as we fight for real health insurance reform.

Little Rock residents were excited about reform at the Highway to Healthcare event on Monday evening. Find more on Flickr.

Read more coverage of the tour in this article from The Advocate in Baton Rouge, LA, and check out Kombiz’s diary at Daily Kos about his time on the highway with the AFSCME RV.

As we continue on the Highway to Health Care Tour, the messages left on our map have been a constant reminder of why we need reform that keeps the insurance industry honest and lowers our costs. We can do that through competition and by giving employers and families more choices, including the choice of a public health insurance option.

On Thursday, President Obama will hold a special forum to update us on what’s happening in Washington — and around the country — as special interests try everything in their power to derail real reform that protects the middle class instead of insurance companies and their executives.

Sign up now to join this forum and hear President Obama lay out the strategy going forward and answer questions from supporters like you. Here are the details:

Organizing for America National Health Care Forum
Thursday, August 20 at 2:30 p.m. ET
RSVP and submit a question for the President

We have to keep our momentum going strong, and Thursday’s call is a chance for us to rally the troops — and connect with allies from all across the country — for an insider’s update on how we’re going to achieve this historic victory. You won’t want to miss it, so sign up now.

During Saturday’s Highway to Health Care event in downtown Lincoln, NE, the crowd got a health care reform history lesson from Vince Powers. It was 100 years ago that President Teddy Roosevelt — a Republican — said the country needed national health care, but he ran into opposition from his party and was unsuccessful.

More from the Lincoln Journal Star:

In the 100 years since, Powers said, incredible advances have made lives easier and better — the automobile, telephone, TV, jet planes, the Internet.

Yet, he said, all over Lincoln, the state and the country, people are worried they may go bankrupt if they get sick because they don’t have health insurance.

“How can we get someone on the moon in that 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt, but we can’t get health insurance?” he asked the crowd.

We’re not asking for the moon, but real health care reform that puts people ahead of insurance company profits. After a week on the Highway to Health Care, it’s clear we’ve really tapped into something — people are eager to learn fact from fiction in a health care debate where opponents spread lies and misinformation.

Stop after stop, we’re sending a powerful message to Congress — we need to fix health care, and we need to do it now.

For more from Nebraska, watch this report from KPTM Fox-42 in Omaha:

After stops yesterday and today in Fayetteville and Little Rock, we’ve crossed into Louisiana where we’ll be stopping in Shreveport and Baton Rouge. Then we’re back on the highway to Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, Delaware and, finally, Maine.

By the way, our Facebook page has 3,141 fans right now — are you a fan? How about your friends? Help us surpass 3,200 today — and pass H.R. 3200 next month! Thanks for your help.

Well, our Highway to Health Care Reform Tour has been on the road for a week, and judging from our Facebook page, it’s been a big success so far (don’t forget to suggest it to your friends).

We did want to share a story with you, though. On Saturday in Omaha, a retiree approached us wanting to make sure that health care reform wouldn’t affect the quality of care he receives through Medicare. We assured him that it wouldn’t, and that we were the very same folks fighting to protect the quality of Social Security and Medicare from privatization attempts by the right.

But it brings up the issue of the smears and scare tactics that the anti-reform crowd is using to derail health care reform. The Alliance for Retired Americans has devoted a section of its website to bust the myths and clear the air. Check it out.