Walz hosts a noisy, yet rather civil town hall

Rep. Tim Walz met the jeers and cheers head-on in Mankato. Points were sometimes shouted, but in the end all applauded.

By WARREN WOLFE, Star Tribune

Last update: August 20, 2009


MANKATO - About 700 feisty and energized people crammed into a high school auditorium Thursday night to tell First District Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., that he should -- and shouldn't -- support legislation to overhaul the nation's health care system.

At times, the town hall audience erupted with applause and boos -- often simultaneously. Questioners supported a government-backed option to private insurance, decried profit in health care, took a side step into energy policy, bemoaned that millions have no health coverage today and urged that the congressional health proposals be completely scrapped.

Though the session was scheduled to last two hours, Walz let it run an extra half-hour because dozens of speakers still were lined up behind microphones as the two-hour mark neared.

It was Walz's first in-person town hall meeting on health care, although he held a "tele-town-hall meeting" Tuesday, during which people could call in to ask questions of him and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Walz's staff said he likely will hold a similar town meeting on health care next month in Rochester.

"It's important to be here," Gloria Platz, of Springfield, Minn., said as she waited for two hours with her husband, Albert. "I'm worried that some of this money is going to pay for abortions and that our Medicare health care may be rationed."

The meeting Thursday was far noisier than the teleconference, with a lot of arguments both for and against making major changes in health care. But it was more civil than many similar sessions around the country, which have seen lawmakers shouted down or have degenerated into mutual name-calling.

"Nobody came here to change their mind," said Terrence Cunningham, 54, an organic farmer from south of Albert Lea. "Either people know we've got a broken health care system that should have been fixed years ago, like I do," he said with a smile, "or they're uninformed and want to stay that way."

Waving a copy of the Constitution, Mankato insurance agent Jerry Longstreet said the founding document "does not say you can take over health care, the banks, auto dealers ..." The shouting and applause drowned out the rest of his sentence. "... How can you do Obama-care?"

If you buy that, Walz shouted out, "then we have to drop [veterans] VA medical coverage and Medicare, along with the National Park System and a lot more." The Constitution, Walz said, says Congress is responsible to for the country's "common defense and welfare, and that's what we're doing."

People started lining up three hours before the town hall meeting began at 6 p.m. at Mankato East High School. After an initial half-hour during which nearly every question and answer was interrupted by yelled comments, hoots, applause and laughter, the audience began to settle down after the moderator, former Republican U.S. Sen. David Durenberger, urged them to "mute it down a little so people can talk." At the end of the meeting, all of those left in the room applauded.

"This was bigger and noisier than the town hall meeting [Seventh District Rep] had,'' Durenberger after the meeting. "There were no new questions, but there certainly was passion -- passion like you normally don't see at forums like this. It's good to see people care, even when they're noisy, about health care policy,'' a topic on which he is a national expert.

"If victory is seen as doing nothing, recognize we'll be in exactly in the same place we are today," Walz said at the start of the forum. "The status quo is not sustainable. Since 2001, the average family insurance premium is up 74 percent where income is up 17 percent. We can't keep going that way."

After one questioner said he's concerned that "doing something may cause more damage than doing nothing," Walz said, "that's exactly right. We know we will be in terrible trouble if we don't do something. Something worse would be even more disastrous. We can't do that."

Walz and Peterson, both Blue Dog Democrat who generally are fiscal conservatives and thus potential "no" votes against the current bills before Congress, have been the target of Republican Party ads urging constituents asking them to oppose health system overhaul. Walz said the ads are misleading and designed to scare people.

Warren Wolfe • 612-673-7253