"Die quickly" comment reels in contentious crowd at Grayson forum

The arguing started before the doors opened.

Backers of U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson launched into a loud defense of the razor-witted Orlando Democrat and host of Monday night's town-hall forum on health care reform in right-leaning Lake County, Fla.

"Grayson tells the truth!" they chanted.

His foes at the Tavares Civic Center, many sporting anti-Grayson signs, answered in kind: "He lies!"

Grayson, who infuriated Republican leaders two weeks ago by describing their health care plan as nothing more than allowing the sick to "die quickly," came to discuss details of the reform package in Lake County, Fla., a deeply conservative area that hasn't voted for a Democrat presidential candidate since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1944.

Many in the crowd Monday night seemed to be as focused on Grayson as on health care proposals.

Steve Zeeler, 52, of nearby Grand Island, Fla., said he hoped to tell Grayson to stop making polarizing comments about health care, which is a crucial issue for many Americans.

"I want the shenanigans to stop," said Zeeler, a self-described independent and one of 200 people who last week received the first-come, first-served tickets to the forum. "I don't see how it helps."

Others said they viewed Grayson as a hero.

"Someone's finally speaking up, saying what has to be said," said Bob Jenner, 53, a middle-school teacher in Leesburg, Fla., who was carrying a pro-Grayson placard that defined the congressman as a synonym for backbone.

The forum was Grayson's fifth town-hall event about health care, but his first in Lake County, where conservative-leaning North Lake Tea Party organizers had persuaded the county commission to draft a formal letter asking Grayson to debate the issue here.

Some questioned whether tickets were distributed fairly.

The crowd inside the civic center appeared to be heavily weighted in Grayson's favor as most stood and cheered his entrance. But his staffers said they chose speakers alternately from supporters, opponents and undecideds, all of whom placed their names in labeled boxes.

Grayson insisted throughout the forum that he did not wish to debate politics.

"It's not about Democrats or Republicans. It's about saving lives," he said.

Grayson, however, did take the opportunity to express disappointment with what he called the GOP's failure to propose a health care alternative.

"I feel that, in many cases, the people who are on the other side ... the Republican side, the people I see across the aisle from me each day, people who I try very hard to work with, are not coming up with solutions to people's problems," he said. "They're not coming up with anything that will provide you care if you have a pre-existing condition. They're not coming up with anything that will keep you alive if you don't have health care coverage."

Grayson said his "tongue-in-cheek comments" on the floor of the House of Representatives have pushed the health care debate forward. He said he thrust the spotlight on his political foes to answer his criticism.

"If our plan's so bad, where's yours?" Grayson said. "You can't fight something with nothing."

The forum was mostly polite.

Wearing a white lab coat, Dr. Scott Gordon, one of a half-dozen medical professionals in the audience, suggested that principles of the physician's Hippocratic oath would well serve Congress as it attempts reform.

"If Congress and politicians are going to come into our field, the health care field, I welcome that. But there are rules in the health care field that we need to make sure they understand. No. 1 is 'do no harm,' " said Gordon, an orthopedic surgeon from Kissimmee. "Sometimes the treatment may be worse than the disease. Be very careful. They're not just balancing the health of the people of the country; they're always balancing the health of the nation."

Grayson said he understood the advice, but repeated that the nation's health care system is broken.

"We will never solve our problem if we do nothing," he said.

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The health care bill expected to pass the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday would, among other things, require everyone to carry insurance and would prevent insurance companies from excluding coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. It is one of several bills being considered by the House and Senate.

Grayson fielded questions about the cost of the proposed reform, saying it would not add to the nation's deficit. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the Senate Finance bill would cost $829 billion over 10 years, which, the CBO determined, would not add to the deficit.

Grayson also told the crowd that the reform would not resemble Canadian health care, though he pointed out that Canadians, on average, live two years longer than U.S. citizens, despite shoveling more snow.

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Gilbert Kepler, 69, of Mount Dora, Fla., a Republican who was not able to get a ticket for the event, hoped to make his voice heard. The retiree said he opposes government-run health care because he is certain it would fail.

"Social Security's broke. Medicaid's broke. The post office is broke," Kepler said. "If the federal government manages to get their hands on health care, it's going to be broke, too."

Health care reform is President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

The bill likely to be passed by the Finance Committee, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 13-10, does not include a government-run public option, a key feature backed by Obama and liberal Democrats, including Grayson, as a way to keep insurance-company costs in check.