Aug 11, 6:24 PM (ET)
By ERICA WERNER
LEBANON, Pa. (AP) - Jeers and taunts drowned out Democrats calling for a health care overhaul at town halls Tuesday, and one lawmaker said a swastika was spray-painted at his office as debate turned to noisy confrontation over President Barack Obama's plan. The president himself was treated more respectfully.
The bitter sessions underscored the challenge for the administration as it tries to win over an increasingly skeptical public on the costly and far-reaching task of revamping the nation's health care system. Desperate to stop a hardening opposition, the White House created a Web site to dispel what it says are smears and House Democrats set up a health care "war room" out of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office to help lawmakers answer questions.
At a crowded community college in Pennsylvania, Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter heard from speaker after speaker who accused him of trampling on their constitutional rights, adding to the federal deficit or allowing government bureaucrats to take over health care.
"You'll be gone, by God the bureaucrats will still be here," said one man.
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"One day God will stand before you and judge you!" shouted a man before security guards approached and he left the room.
Specter gamely tried to explain his positions - and on occasion mediate among shouting constituents - saying he wouldn't vote for a bill that adds to the deficit. He also said he wouldn't support a bill that extends coverage to illegal immigrants. None of the bills in Congress would provide health insurance to illegal immigrants.
One woman tried to make it personal for Specter, alleging that the Democrats' plan would not provide care to a man in his 70s with cancer, like Specter had.
"You're here because of the plan we have now," she said.
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"Well, you're just not right," he said. He called her claim a "vicious, malicious" rumor.
The passions of the crowd illustrated the problems for Democratic lawmakers around the country as they try to use the monthlong August recess to promote Obama's agenda. There's not a single plan to promote, which Specter later told reporters made his job harder, along with the complexity of the issue. The House bill is more than 1,000 pages.
And, Specter said, "The objectors have gotten ahead of the curve." Asked why, he cited talk radio, among other factors.
In Georgia, Democratic Rep. David Scott's staff arrived at his Smyrna, Ga., office outside Atlanta on Tuesday morning to find a large, black swastika spray-painted on a sign out front bearing his name. The vandalism occurred roughly a week after Scott was involved in a contentious argument over health care at a community meeting.
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"We have got to make sure that the symbol of the swastika does not win, that the racial hatred that's bubbling up does not win this debate," Scott said in a telephone interview. "That's what is bubbling up with all of this. There's so much hatred out there for President Obama."
In Hillsboro, Mo., a frustrated Sen. Claire McCaskill admonished a rowdy crowd of some 1,500 at a town hall where she was peppered with questions about health care for veterans, seniors and illegal immigrants and provisions funding abortions. One man was arrested after allegedly ripping a sign from a woman that showed a picture of Rosa Parks sitting on a bus and read, "First Lady of Civil Rights."
"I don't understand this rudeness," McCaskill told the crowd at one point. "I honestly don't get it."
Someone shouted out that they didn't trust McCaskill.
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One participant, Mary Ann Fieser of Hillsboro, said elected officials owe it to citizens to allow them a forum for showing their displeasure with the health care plan.
"If they don't let us vent our frustrations out, they will have a revolution," she said.
Though his popularity is slipping in polls, Obama himself is repeatedly trying to make the case to the public for passage of comprehensive legislation this year to bring down costs and extend coverage to many of the 50 million uninsured. He made that appeal at his own town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., where he hardly faced the tough crowds greeting other Democrats.
Specter said that in a long life in politics he hadn't seen anything like what he witnessed Tuesday and at a town hall last weekend that turned even uglier.
"There is more anger in America today than at any time I can remember," Specter said.
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Associated Press writers Ben Evans in Washington and Sheila Ellis in Hillsboro, Mo., contributed to this report.
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