Scared.

Anxious. Worried. Confused. Angry.

That describes the moods of many who took to the microphone at Sen. Lisa Murkowski's jam-packed town hall meeting on health care Thursday evening in Anchorage.

"Many of us senior citizens are terrified," a man named Ray said. "How can you add 47 million people (the estimated number of uninsured) without rationing people like me?"

"I just think these plans all kind of reek of socialism," said a lady in a green shirt. "This is not the country I want to live in."

She got a big round of applause.

On the other hand, a white-haired guy said we should buy up all the stock of the "profit and motive vultures who run the health care industry now." We should make health care nonprofit, he said, socialistically.

He got both big cheers and some boos.

A crowd of about 800 turned out at Dimond High to talk and listen. Some speakers trashed Medicare and slammed the federal government, period, though one person praised the government-funded Indian Health Service and another pushed the "public option," which is voluntary government-sponsored health insurance.

Sen. Murkowski, who's largely been a critic of the Democratic-led proposals for health care reform, agreed with most of the comments, seemingly swept along by the prevailing political wind. To Darrell Keifer, the man who suggested that a public health insurance option might save money in the long run, Murkowski said, "It's not so much that the government plan itself is a bad thing," but, she said, an existing government plan, Medicare for the elderly, does not work in Alaska.

To a man named Tom, who asked why we would want to have government-run health care, Murkowski said, "I don't believe the government should be running health care. The government is good at some things, but don't ask me to tell you what they are." This, from a senator who routinely boasts about bringing home tens of millions of government dollars to Alaska.

My takeaway message?

People who came to the town hall are, in the main, worried about and suspicious of the national efforts to reform health care.

Sen. Murkowski says it has to be done -- she's adamant that the continuously escalating costs of health care are simply unsustainable -- but strongly supports only a few specific pieces around the edge of it, so far. She wants better co-ordinated medical treatment, with greater use of mid-level professionals. She wants Medicare reimbursement rates raised in Alaska so more doctors will accept Medicare patients. She wants incentives to expand the pool of available doctors. And she's comfortable with saying insurance companies cannot exclude those with pre-existing conditions.

All good ideas, but not getting to the heart of the issue: affordable, cost-effective health care for everybody.

-- Rosemary Shinohara

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