House's health care bill debated at Lamborn meeting

WOODLAND PARK - U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, about 200 of his supporters and a smattering of critics talked for an hour here Tuesday, while the star of the show sat mute on the podium -- HR3200, 1,000 pages and 8 inches thick, one version of the health care reform legislation now being debated across the nation.

At the first of three town hall meetings he has scheduled for the August congressional recess, Lamborn and the crowd that overflowed the Woodland Park City Council chambers mostly took turns vilifying the bill.

Much of the shouting heard at other such meetings across the country has been directed at elected officials who support various permutations of the Obama administration's proposal for mandatory health insurance for every American and some new system to help pay for it, either a government-run "public option" health insurance program or private, subscriber-owned insurance co-ops.

The conservatives at Tuesday's meeting had no bone to pick with Lamborn. He opposes the public option version, and his spokeswoman said he's "skeptical" of co-ops if the federal government provides startup money to get them on their feet.

Many in the crowd were not just vocally anti-reform, but anti-government. One questioner was cheered when he called President Barack Obama “a pathological liar.”

Though in his opening remarks he called for "a good, mature, civilized, constructive discussion," Lamborn let the comment about Obama go unchallenged.

But on two occasions Lamborn asked supporters of health care reform to come forward, and several did. One woman, who said she was a physical therapist suffering from multiple sclerosis, challenged Lamborn to come up with alternatives to the administration's plan. "I do know that the health care system is broken," she said.

Lamborn responded that "there are some free-market-based reforms that we can and should do to health care," including tax credits for insurance costs and interstate insurance shopping.

Lamborn listed a variety of reasons he opposes HR3200, including:

• Cost. "It's going to make taxes and the deficit go up tremendously," he said, citing an estimate that it would cost $1.3 trillion.
• Rationing. He asserted that a "nationalized" health care system would reduce disease survival rates by denying care.
• Bureaucracy. "Unelected bureaucrats will be given immense power," he said.
• Lawsuits. He wants the bill to cap malpractice liability, which drives up costs that are passed on to consumers.

Lamborn also repeated the "death panels" phrase coined by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who falsely characterized the bill's coverage of end-of-life care consultations as deciding who will live and who will die.

Lamborn accurately described the provision and said he worried that such consultations "will have an unfortunate connection in some people's minds and they will feel pressure to maybe forgo treatment that they would otherwise be able to have to save the country money, or something like that."

Lamborn often had to speak over audience members voicing their own answers to questions or providing running commentary on the discussion. But the crowd, though boisterous, mostly minded its manners.

The tensest moment came while the first member of the public invited to the microphone was in the midst of a lengthy analysis of the proposals when he was interrupted by an insistent James Tucker, a military veteran and publisher of the African-American Voice newspaper in Colorado Springs. He asked how America could provide free health care to Afghans and Iraqis but not to all of its own citizens.

Lamborn said the two issues were unrelated.

Lamborn's other town hall meetings are set for Canon City City Hall on Aug. 25 and the Valley Hi golf course in Colorado Springs on Aug. 27.

Woodland Park was not the only local venue for the health care debate Tuesday. A couple dozen local liberal activists visited the Colorado Springs offices of U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall to urge them to stand fast for "meaningful" health care reform.

Rita Ague, the group's leader, said "meaningful" meant the "public option" at a minimum, and warned Bennet and Udall against settling for anything less.

Bennet has said he prefers the public option, but his office said he wasn't "drawing any lines in the sand" regarding the co-op substitute. Udall favors health care reform but is not committed to any specific delivery system.

Contact the writer at 476-1654