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.

Among the proponents was Dimitry Pompee, a 20-year-old college student, who traded shouts with opponents on the other side of the street.

"I'm all about discourse and reason," Pompee said, "but when they spread this nonsense … I'm here to yell."

The scene outside provided most of the color for the event. Inside, Obama was rarely challenged.

He took nine questions, none more contentious than when a young girl named Julia Hall from Malden, Mass., asked what was accurate among all the "mean things" on protesters' signs.

"I've seen some of those signs," Obama said, ridiculing accusations from opponents that he wants to create "death panels that will basically pull the plug on grandma because we've decided that it's too expensive to let her live anymore. … I'm not in favor of that."

As for contentions that his plan would lead to rationing of health care, Obama said that was a more legitimate concern.

"I recognize there is an underlying fear here," he said. But insurance companies already are rationing care by the decisions they make, he said — decisions to limit or refuse care that would be prohibited under his plan.

Another legitimate concern, he said, was whether a public insurance plan he favors would overwhelm the private insurance system. Obama said it should not.

"If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine," he said by way of example. "It's the post office that's always having problems."

While ticket-holders were respectful — there were no disruptions during the meeting — protesters outside were vitriolic in their criticism.

Pascal and Susan Fusco drove 80 minutes from Rockport, Mass., with signs protesting what they called a threatened government takeover of health care. Their son had called them from Martha's Vineyard on Monday to tell them about the event.

"I think this is about power, not health care," Susan Fusco, 71, said.

Many of the opponents were elderly people on Medicare who fear the estimated cost of Obama's plan — $ 1 trillion over 10 years — will lead to cuts in the popular program.

"We don't have any money," said Sam Cataldo, 72, a former state representative. "It's going to bankrupt this country."

Many of those on the other side were union members, including nurses from Massachusetts, who have good health insurance and want others to have the same.

"Because I have a good one, to hell with everyone else? I don't believe that," said John Paul Jones, 73, a retired postal worker.

The bedlam on the street was more than Tesa Aliouche, 10, and her 8-year-old brother Aiden could handle.

"I wish it would be a little calmer," Tesa said of the protesters. "They don't need to yell."

Obama's push came amid a string of disruptive health care town halls nationwide that have overshadowed his message and threatened to derail support in Congress.

Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter faced hostile questions, taunts and jeers earlier Tuesday as he tried to explain his positions at a town hall in Lebanon, Pa.

And in Smyrna, Ga., someone spray-painted a large swastika on a sign outside the office of Democratic Rep. David Scott, who was involved in a contentious argument over health care at a recent community meeting. Scott, who is black, said the swastika is the latest example of what he believes is an increasingly hateful and racist debate over reforming health care.

The Atlanta lawmaker said he also has received mail in recent days that used N-word references to him and characterized Obama as a Marxist.

"We have got to make sure that the symbol of the swastika does not win, that the racial hatred that's bubbling up does not win this debate," Scott said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press. "That's what is bubbling up with all of this. There's so much hatred out there for President Obama."

U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who has been under fire for being a less-than-enthusiastic backer of the Obama administration's health care reform plans, has launched an ad campaign to counter criticism.

Nelson was one of six senators who penned a letter last month calling for Congress to take its time in crafting a reform plan. He is considered a potential swing vote, having voiced criticism of some Democrat-backed proposals, particularly a so-called public option that would create a government-run insurance plan to compete with those offered by the health insurance industry.

"Like too much stuff that comes out of Washington, it's hard to know what's fact and what's fiction," Nelson says in his ad. "Any plan must keep spending under control, help small businesses, improve care, control costs, and most of all, the plan needs to work for Nebraska."

Contributing: Associated Press