Healthcare forum becomes a shouting match at times

Teesha McClam Dr. Deepak Kumar moderated a forum that became rowdy at times while also giving his views about what ails health care.

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Dr. Ryan Simon is emphatic as he says incomplete information about a prostate cancer study was given to the crowd about treatment in England during a health care overhaul forum at the Dayton Convention Center on Wednesday, Nov. 11.

Teesha McClam Dr. Ryan Simon is emphatic as he says incomplete information about a prostate cancer study was given to the crowd about treatment in England during a health care overhaul forum at the Dayton Convention Center on Wednesday, Nov. 11.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Photos: Healthcare rally, forum in Dayton

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By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 10:46 AM Thursday, November 12, 2009

DAYTON — Democracy got ugly Wednesday, Nov. 11, at the Dayton Convention Center as a forum on overhauling health care devolved at times into a shouting match.

Twice during the two-hour event, some among the crowd of 130 barked at state Sen. John Husted:

• Once while Husted, R-Kettering, a panelist, discussed the role that crisis, real or imagined, plays in creating momentum for big pieces of legislation like the health care bill currently in Congress.

• And again when he emphasized the cost of health care and the $12 trillion national debt.

“Some of the behavior here today was very inappropriate,” Dr. Evangeline Andarsio, president-elect of the Montgomery County Medical Society, told the crowd following a question-and-answer session used by some folks posing as questioners as a platform for their impassioned views.

Some speakers, including Montgomery County Commissioner Dan Foley, a Democrat, talked of health care as a right. Others framed it as a matter of personal responsibility.

“If we don’t take care of ourselves ... health care costs will become insurmountable,” Husted said.

The forum was spearheaded by Take It Back, a group that favors free-market policy solutions. Local endocrinologist Dr. David Westbrock of Take It Back opened the forum by referencing the Dayton region’s tradition of self-reliance in responding to problems, citing the creation of the Miami Conservancy District in response to the Great Flood of 1913.

Prior to the meeting, about 40 people gathered at Montgomery County Democratic headquarters, 131 S. Wilkinson St., for a meeting called by Doctors for America, a pro-reform, physician activist group.

Then they rallied outside the Convention Center, challenging opponents of a health care overhaul with signs that read, for example, “Leaving 52 million uninsured is not a plan.”

“We have to challenge them on this premise that the free market can fix what it broke,” Dr. Alonzo Patterson of Dayton told the pro-reform group.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457  or bsutherly@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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