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RALEIGH – Nearly 200 members of the State Employees Association of North Carolina and other health care advocates headed to Washington D.C. Tuesday to protest big insurance companies.

“I am one of those sleepy heads and I like to sleep in, but I'm here today ready to rock and roll,” Betty Jones, a SEANC district chair for the Raleigh area, said.

Their mission as they head to Washington is to protest against big insurance companies. According to the Dana Cope, the SEANC executive director, America's Health Insurance Plans, of which Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina is a member, is holding a national conference at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the capital.

“We're not going to take it anymore. While they're in the Ritz-Carlton eating their big shrimp and high-dollar meals, we're outside eating Ritz crackers, and that's not enough,” Cope said. “We're going to send a message that we're tired of their CEOs making over $4 million a year when folks are literally dying because they don't have access to health insurance in this country.”

Not everyone was on board with the plan. Dallas Woodhouse, the state director for the conservative group Americans For Prosperity, said instead the members should be asking Congress for more health care choices.

“It's a shame that the union members and the democratic allies have to make an enemy out of the people that work in the insurance industry, honest insurance agents and other people who provide a service,” Woodhouse said.

While in Washington, the group will also show their support for President Barack Obama's health care reform initiatives.

“Rates constantly going up and changing each year and it's making it not affordable. Everything is going up except salaries,” SEANAC member Telessie McGhee said.

With one loud voice the members hope to make a difference.

“If we just lay down like little lambs, they will run over us. But if we come out like lions, they will hear us, they will see us and they will know we are somebody to be reckoned with,” Jones said.

A spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield said they strongly believe in the need for health care reform and they certainly hope a bipartisan solution can be reached. They also hope that the quality of health coverage is improved and health care can be provided to all.