Obama promotes health-care plan in front of friendly crowd

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Ready for a fight he never got, President Obama went on the offensive in support of his health-care plan Tuesday, urging a town hall audience not to listen to those who seek to "scare and mislead the American people."

"For all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary is if we do nothing," Obama told a friendly crowd of about 1,800 in a high school auditorium and a nationwide audience watching on cable television.

The White House had been ready for an unruly reception from opponents of overhauling health care. There was no sign of that, perhaps because of the makeup of the day's crowd or out of deference for the president.

Obama's push came amid a string of disruptive 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. Voter fears of a government takeover of health care were on display.

Some lawmakers, holding forums during Congress' August recess, have gone so far as to replace public forums with teleconferences or step up security to keep protesters at bay.

But the Democratic president faced no outbursts.

The encounter was so friendly, in fact, that by the end Obama was even asking for skeptical questioners to come forward -- to no avail.

He told his audience, "For all the chatter and the yelling and the shouting and the noise, what you need to know is this ... if you do have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need."

Obama addressed some of his remarks to a skeptical audience: the tens of millions of people who already have health insurance and are generally satisfied with the care they get.

He said the overhaul is essential to them, too, contending it is the way to keep control in their hands. Obama said while government bureaucrats shouldn't meddle with people's care, bureaucrats at insurance companies should not, either.

The president reiterated his determination that the plan be paid for without adding to the nation's deficit.

He took on what he described as erroneous claims that have risen as the debate in Washington and the nation has developed.

He singled out the charge that the Democratic health-care legislation would create "death panels" to deny care to seniors. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said the Democrats' legislation includes "death panels" that could deny care.

Obama said a provision that he said had caused the uproar would only authorize Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, living wills, hospice care and other issues, if the patients wanted it. It would not "basically pull the plug on grandma because we decided that it's too expensive to let her live anymore," as Obama put it.

Obama also sought to dispel talk that his goal is a single-payer federal health-care system, like that in countries such as Canada.

He also disputed the notion that adding a government-run insurance plan into a menu of options from which people could pick would drive private insurers out of business, in effect making the system single-payer by default.

As long as they have a good product and the government plan has to sustain itself through premiums and other non-tax revenue, private insurers should be able to compete with the government plan, Obama said.

"They do it all the time," he said. "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. ... It's the Post Office that's always having problems."