Health care debate a good sign

I rarely get excited about town hall meetings or political listening tours.

It's hard to be inspired by those manicured affairs, where the usual suspects ask the usual questions and get the usual answers.

But the health care forums hosted by representatives across the country are a different story.

When things get so heated that a congressman is driven to publicly compare a voter to common household furniture -- that's a circus I've got to be part of.

So on Saturday, I headed out to Rep. Dave Loebsack's town-hall meeting on health care reform at the University of Iowa's Macbride Auditorium (full disclosure: I briefly worked for Loebsack early on in his 2006 campaign, before I worked for The Gazette).

Loebsack's no Barney Frank, but the meeting still had all the makings of good political theater.

The sign war was on: "Health care, not war," stated one. "Wake up," urged another. "It's not about health care. It's about control of YOUR LIFE!"

What struck me wasn't the sloganeering, but the fact that more than 750 people showed up on a beautiful Saturday morning to hear Loebsack describe Byzantine congressional committee processes.

Instead of enjoying a day off from conflict and worry, they packed a lecture hall to learn more about proposed changes to a largely incomprehensible health care mishmash.

That's a testament to just how much health care reform matters to everyone -- usual and unusual suspects alike.

Oh sure, there was some name calling:

"Have a heart," a man yelled to a speaker who was worried about how much House bill 3200 would cost.

"Have a brain," came a woman's reply from across the room.

But the real story isn't the fact that we (yawn) disagree about how to fix our train wreck of a medical delivery system, or even that some folks are misrepresenting the details to cause a panic.

It's that Mr. Heart, Ms. Brain and hundreds more showed up to engage in the process. It's that, for the most part, they respected each other's points of view, even if they didn't agree.

Photos of the president doctored up to look like Hitler? Seen it. That's not news.

What is news is that despite all the factors conspiring against it -- cynicism, complicated and boring details, even the good weather -- people are engaged.

Our health care system might be sick, but democracy is alive and well. That's exciting.

Jennifer Hemmingsen's column appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Contact the writer at (319) 339-3154 or jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com