You know how we know that there is deep and widespread skepticism and concern about the health-care legislation in Congress that goes far, far beyond the GOP base? When you start hearing about doubful constituents in Queens, New York:
Congressmember Anthony Weiner ran into the same rough waters as Democratic lawmakers elsewhere in the country who are trying to sell President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plan at a town hall meeting he held on the subject at a Howard Beach senior center on Monday.
The Queens/Brooklyn lawmaker didn’t get any of the in-your-face antagonism some of his colleagues have encountered, but he did get questioned about what possible adverse changes the plan might create in existing Medicare coverage.
Responding to one such question from the 50 or so people present, according to one press report, Weiner declared: “It’s completely unfounded.” He added that opponents of the plan were spreading “yarns to scare people”.
But another speaker insisted, “You have a lot of loopholes that have to be straightened out” in the complex plan.
Howard Beach is in Queens, where Obama carried the vote, 74 percent to 25 percent.