Although only about a dozen or so showed up to hear the debate, organizers say the discussion is of critical importance.
Around 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, the seats of the auditorium at Princeton Middle School were almost completely empty, except for some organizers and two people wearing blue T-shirts.
The meeting started at 6:00 p.m. Marlene Wadhams arrived early to beat the crowd.
“Yeah, I expected to see far more people," she said. "I figured well they’d be pouring in."
Roman Stauffer helped to organize the event. He admits the turnout was less than expected.
“I think this is definitely a big issue and I wouldn’t judge the success of the event based on the turnout," he said.
"I think there are people out there who are concerned about the type of health care we have and what Washington does on this issue."
Over the summer, Congressman Nick Rahall held a health care reform town hall meeting in Princeton with a much larger turnout.
"We don’t have a member of Congress that will be voting on a health care bill in Washington," he said. "There is no one here that is going to be able to put forth the ideas that are discussed here."
"At the same time, there are events going on in the area that folks may have attended that prevented them from being here tonight. So I think there are multiple reasons that the turnout is not as big as we hoped."
Speakers at the event included Joe Ellington and Frank Johnson both medical doctors Ralph Modena with Wells Fargo and Mike Stuart, Chairman of the Wet Virginia Conservative Foundation.
"Tort reform is one piece of the puzzle," Stuart said. "No family should be forced into bankruptcy because of a catastrophic health event."
"We believe that ought to be changed. Portability, we think it’d be a good thing if folks could shop their insurance plan beyond their state borders and pre-existing conditions."
"Somehow we’re going to have to fix those problems. Certainly there's a need for reform but how extensive the reform."
Marlen Wadhams was joined eventually by a few other people wearing the same blue shirts. The shirts had the letters P-A-C that stand for prayer action committee. It’s a group made of people from different churches in the region.
She says the group is concerned about the moral standards of the possible health care reform bill. They are a pro-life group and don’t want to see the bill provide government funded abortions, but that’s not all they’re concerned about.
"I’m concerned about senior citizens and what this will mean to them," she said. "If they can’t get the care they need if they’re going to be denied certain procedures because of their age."
"I don’t want to see that and certainly that is a moral issue if someone doesn’t receive the care they need."
Stauffer says West Virginians can expect to see more Conservative Foundation sponsored town hall meetings on this topic before the votes are cast on the health care reform bill.