Mad Over Health Care Reform, or Something Else?

Aug. 14, 2009— -- Scenes of red-faced, finger-pointing, hopping-mad people at health care town hall meetings have been repeated dozens of times across the country this month.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who was berated nose-to-nose by an opponent of the health care reform this week, had to shout over a group to be heard in a 200-person town hall meeting again on Thursday.

"I've had hundreds of town meetings over the course of my career," Specter said after the meeting. "I've been to virtually every county virtually every year, and I've never seen anything like this, or anything near this."

While members of Congress try to strategize around the uproar for future town meetings, psychologists versed in group dynamics are simply scratching their heads: Is this really about health care, a contagious group fear, or an eruption of smoldering anger over the direction of the country in the past year?

Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., managed to keep the uproar to a minimum at four town hall meetings Wednesday. He started with a presentation of the bill by health care professionals, gave his view in opposition, and opened it up to the crowd with alternating pro-con comment sessions afterwards.

But even after avoiding all but one outburst, Coffman could sense a seething anger.

"I would go speak at events, and the people on the left would be angry at me, but they tended to be more civil -- and the people on the right tended to be angrier," said Coffman. "The ground felt like it was shifting after the stimulus bill and the tea party protests just a little bit."

Although Coffman is against the reform measure and leans to the right politically, he said some people against the heath care bill "would say, 'You people in Congress,' 'You people in Washington.'"

"It was almost like it was an eruption in the distrust in government," Coffman said. "To them, I'm as much as the enemy as anybody else."

Theresa Rose, a specialist in group behavior and a psychologist based Kansas City, Mo., also saw an undercurrent of distress leading up to the fury of the current health care debate.

"In the context of the economy, the stock market, the bitterness of the political battles that have raged," said Rose, "at this time in our country, I think people are often feeling powerless and unable to have an effect."