Obama takes on critics' 'wild' claims at N.H. forum

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Fans and foes of President Obama's push to overhaul health care descended on a high school here on Tuesday to challenge him and hear him fight back against the criticisms — some outlandish — that have slowed the legislation's progress.

"Parasites!" yelled the protesters on the right side of the school driveway.

"Ignorants!" yelled the protesters on the left side.

While apparently failing to convert the people outside who protested from the right side of the driveway, Obama sought to reassure the people gathered inside the school gymnasium that health-care reform does not mean that Americans will lose coverage or surrender treatment decisions to the government.

"Where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that has actually been proposed," Obama told the meeting of about 1,800 people.

Obama predicted that Congress would pass a health-care overhaul, suggesting that while hoping for a bipartisan bill, he would abandon efforts to get Republican support if it became necessary. "The most important thing is to get it done for the American people," Obama said.

He took issue with critics who he said had distorted the debate.

Digging into the specifics of those accusations, Obama on Tuesday denounced the claim by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and other conservative critics that he supports a panel of experts who would decide whether patients live or die.

"The rumor that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for 'death panels' that will basically pull the plug on Grandma," Obama said.

The fear appears to be based on a provision that would require Medicare to pay for doctors to counsel patients on living wills and end-of-life care — an idea that has "gotten spun into this idea of death panels," Obama said.

"I am not in favor of them. I just want to clear the air," he said.

Unlike many of Obama's town-hall-style meetings, usually filled to the rafters with supporters, Tuesday's meeting included skeptics from whom he sought out questions. At one point he asked that only people who disagreed with his approach raise their hand to be called on.

There were plenty who responded. A schoolteacher from Portsmouth asked where the country was going to get the doctors and nurses to attend to all the newly insured people who would be seeking treatment. A man who identified himself as Bill Anderson said that Medicare tried to force him to take a generic substitute for Lipitor, the anti-cholesterol drug, which did not agree with him, before allowing him to return to the name-brand drug. Ben Hershenson, a self-described Republican — "I don't know what I'm doing here" — fretted that a government-run public option would kill private insurance companies.

Obama said that health reform would free doctors to concentrate on treatment because they would not be prodded to schedule unnecessary tests. He said Medicare's decision to allow Anderson to return to Lipitor showed that the system worked.

And he said that a government-run public option should not kill private insurers but rather force them to be more competitive, even going so far as to compare the competition between them to Federal Express, UPS and the post office. "UPS and Fed Ex are doing just fine," Obama joked. "It's the post office that's always having problems."

Outside the school, things were less civil. There appeared to be about 2,000 people there, roughly 50 percent for and 50 percent against. "Euthanize Obama!" yelled one protester from the right side of the driveway at Tom Jordan, a social-studies teacher from Amesbury, Mass., who stood with the president's supporters and held up a "Euthanize Ignorance: Go Obama" sign.

Other posters dubbed the president "Obamahdinejad," after the Iranian president. People screamed into bullhorns to protest a bigger government role in health care. "Nobama Deathcare!" one sign read. A young girl held up another sign that read: "Obama Lies, Grandma Dies." Television broadcast images of an unidentified protester wearing what appeared to be a gun.