Frederica Freyberg:
But first, a raucous meet-up on the topic of health care, a topic that is still a work in progress. A Democratic plan has passed three committees in the House but gone no further. The Senate is yet to move a bill of any sort. This hasn't stopped members of Congress from organizing town hall meetings all around the country, including a very lively one in Watertown last night organized by Republican Congressman Tom Petri.

Man:
Vote everybody out of office. There's not a damn bit of difference between a Republican and a Democrat. They're all the same, and they'll sell their souls for a vote.

Frederica Freyberg:
An over-filled crowd turned out in Watertown for Congressman Petri’s seventh town hall meeting on health care reform.

Man:
We don't need to fix this bill, Congressman. We need to forget about this bill.

Crowd:
Yeah!

Man:
I think everybody here agrees we need health care reform. We don't need what's in there. We need reform.

Man:
There's a woman here with a sign that really offended me when I saw it because it offends me that she's relating President Obama to Hitler. The only name that's not on there is George W. Bush.  And I'll...

Crowd:
Boo!

Tom Petri:
Let's see. Who hasn't had a chance here?

Woman:
And I would like to say you look very good, so your insurance has taken very good care of you. And I want insurance that will take very good of my husband.  

Man:
How am I as a taxpayer supposed to support the growing number of elderly people and not just elderly people, young people that I deliver to every day that are sitting at home on welfare, getting WIC, getting food stamps, getting their welfare checks that don't care to work. How do I support that? They're way overweight. They eat their chips and soda. They drink their alcohol and smoke, and then they go and want health care.

Frederica Freyberg:
Opposition in the Republican’s sixth district easily outweighed those in favor of America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. But certainly many do favor the reform that would come with a government insurance plan. 

Woman:
I for one based upon my situation and the situation of many other people who are currently unemployed would urge you to please vote for the public option.  

Frederica Freyberg:
Calm heads like that did not prevail when it came to one man's anger over the reform measures and his anger spilled over onto the Congressman.

Man:
Majority of Americans do not favor socialized medicine. Either step up, do what we need, be a Republican, be a conservative, step down or get out of the way. You're going to put us in a clunker. That's what you're going to do.

Tom Petri:
I am not. 

Man:
You show me a country in the world where this works, socialized medicine. You can't name one.

Tom Petri:
I voted against the plan, sir. Isn't that enough for you?

Man:
Not yet.

Frederica Freyberg:
Following that bitter exchange, we asked Rep. Petri why he voted no.

Tom Petri:
I think the psychology is all wrong of talking about counseling about people saving money in end-of-life medicine. So that's where the paranoia comes in. When you're talking about a bill that involves purchasing health services and what's mandated and what's required, the fear is that you will start having health care rationing and in other countries it's certainly widely talked about, anyway, that if you're over a certain age, you may not get or you may have to wait for certain types of services that you don't in the United States, whether it's a hip transplant or kidney dialysis or other things. So you put all that ball of wax together, and I think you basically are in a situation where we're frightening an awful lot of people. What would be covered in a required health care plan has not been defined. It's left in the bill. It's left to administrative decision later. And so Rep. Mark Souter of Illinois introduced an amendment in our committee to explicitly provide that abortion services would not be mandated, could not be mandated. It's sort of a mini amendment. That was voted down. I voted for it because that's the policy we've had. Now, people on the other side say there's nothing in the bill that requires it. That's true. But it could be required by the administrator.

Frederica Freyberg:
Rep. Petri also cites the potential trillion-dollar-plus cost of reform measures and says he prefers health savings accounts to mandated coverage plans. Congressman Petri is holding three more town hall meetings with a focus on health care reform today.