Obama takes on health care critics
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- President Obama waded into a thicket of protests against his proposed overhaul of the nation's health care system Tuesday, denouncing some opponents for employing "scare tactics" and "wild misrepresentations."
Kicking off a series of town meetings here before heading west later this week for sessions in Montana and Colorado, Obama sought to head off mounting criticism of his plan among conservatives on cable TV, radio and the Internet.
Opponents "will try to scare the heck out of folks, and they'll create bogeymen out there that just aren't real," the president told about 1,800 people inside Portsmouth High School, while demonstrators outside shouted at each other across police cordons. "This is what they always do. We can't let them do it again. Not this time."
While the meeting was similar to others Obama has held across the country on his top policy priority, the scene outside was different: about 500 demonstrators on each side of the street leading to the school who didn't get tickets but showed up anyway to vent their frustrations.
They began showing up shortly after 6 a.m., when Gordon Cavis of Dover, N.H., arrived with a new bullhorn, chair and cooler. It was his first protest since the Nixon administration, when he was in college.
"I'm really upset about what's happening in this country," Cavis, 60, said, contending that the health plan would cover illegal immigrants, cut Medicare and lead to rationing. "I feel that this administration is subverting the Constitution on the same level as Richard Nixon."
About equal numbers of proponents and opponents used bullhorns and signs to make their points: proponents that an overhaul is needed to cover millions of uninsured and control costs, opponents that it could lead to rationing, socialism and "death panels."
The opponents arrived in small groups with handmade signs, many driving for several hours from Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. Proponents showed up in larger groups, some in buses with signs made by pro-Obama organizations such as Organizing for America and Health Care for America Now.
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