Last night I went to Charlottesville High School’s performing arts center for a Town Hall meeting about health care reform with my congressman, Tom Periello. It was well attended by people who are on both sides of this issue, and while there was some disruption, it never got too out of hand. “In the shadow of Jefferson,” said Mr. Periello, “we know how to dissent.”

There were some legitimate concerns aired last night, but in my impression – not many. Most people that chose to ask questions basically told their personal story and then asked, “What are you going to do to ensure we get some reform?” True to his campaign message that he would vote for what he believed in, not party lines, Periello admitted that he, unpopularly, was not ready to sign the bill in it’s current form, but that he was leaning towards signing if some changes were made. He also (unpopularly) expressed disdain for the Single Payer system that many in attendance were in favor of, insisting that he felt “the private sector can do it better.”

I don’t think I’m personally informed enough about the Single Payer system to agree with him one way or the other, but I can’t fault the logic at work; if the public option is viable and inexpensive, it will force private insurance to improve their quality and lower their costs, else they lose significant business. This ideal is lauded by many on the right as being the backdoor to Single Payer, but I don’t agree. I think the door only opens if they are unwilling to compete, and they just want our money too badly to throw in the towel.

One thing that Periello did draw some attention to which I don’t think is said enough in the media is that many of the 47 million who are currently uninsured actually do want insurance and would be happy to buy it were they not turned down by insurance companies due to age, pre-existing conditions, and the like. I think it is really easy for the media to forget about these people and insist that we’re dealing strictly with illegal aliens and lazy people. I hope this gets a little bit more coverage as this debate goes on.

The greatest disruption came early in the evening, when an older woman told the story of her 78 year old mother being injured in Canada and having to bring her back to the US to receive “the treatment she needed.” She also spoke of some issues with her 84 year old father-in-law. She insisted quite passionately that she had read the bill and that in both cases, her family members would have been forced to go before a government panel to determine whether or they were eligible (actually, I think i’m just being polite, and the word she used was “worthy”) of care and treatment.

This question of “Death Panels” has become one of the more volatile messages of the current debate, and we can thank Sarah Palin for it. While HR 3200 does reference the establishment of a committee, it is not one that will make decisions on the type of care your family will receive in a time of need. Section 123 actually says that a committee of providers, consumer representatives, employers, labor, health insurance issuers, independent experts and representatives of government will work together to establish the minimum amount of care a plan can cover, not the maximum. This means that everyone in the country will have the same amount of basic coverage, and places no limitation on the care you can receive based on your age/condition/etc. We have those limitations in place already – the insurance companies put them there – and removing them is one of the basic tenets of this reform.

While frustrating, it was interesting to see this woman talk with such passion. I wasn’t personally convinced that she had actually read the bill, as she suggested she had, but I can’t deny the possibility that her life experience, and the opinion panels she chooses to read in the paper/hear on the radio/etc, has shaped her outlook in such a way that did impose a Death Panel in this bill. My knee-jerk reaction is always, “Well, it’s an education issue.” This comes down to my time working in HR I suppose. The thing is, I can’t help but equate this to the birther thing, or to the people who insisted during Barack Obama’s campaign for president that, despite all evidence to the contrary, he was Muslim.

My point is – Periello responded to this woman’s question with a simple statement – “There are no Death Panel’s anywhere in this bill.” I don’t think that statement was enough for her. I’m sure she went home that night secure in the belief that this reform meant the end for all seniors, with no change from when she arrived, and I fear that one of life’s most basic lessons is at work here. “You can’t help those who don’t want to be helped.” There are a lot of scare tactics being employed about this reform right now – and again I can draw a parallel to Obama’s campaign. While the answer to these situations is education, there are people out there right now that don’t want to be educated. They want to believe that the government is out to get them. They want to believe that politicians don’t have their best interests at heart.

They want to believe (as this woman insisted) that America already has the best health care system in the world.

So where does that leave us? I’ve always been told that “you can’t teach a pig to dance,” but I can’t help but be motivated to try, because I truly do believe our current system is broken, and that this reform bill is definitely going a long way to fixing it.

On a personal level, I think that The White House is doing it right. I think that these types of inflammatory attacks on the ideas of the reform bill should be addressed, but in a calm, logical, information-based way. I’m not perfect, so it’s not always going to be easy for me, but it is the answer. State the facts, and leave it at that. If the person isn’t ready for the facts, that’s ok.

Another way to say that same basic life lesson – you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. Let’s just make sure that when they arrive there is plenty of water to go around, ok?