Patients First

Expect some vigorous rebuttal to the 'death panel' talk when President Obama arrives at a town hall meeting in the small Montana town of Belgrade, near Bozeman, today. Seven hundred people were lined up Friday morning to get tickets,  the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports this morning.

In an indication that the White House is in full rebuttal mode, an email posted on the White House Web site Thursday quoted  David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama, saying that critics of the administration's health-care proposals were "spreading all sorts of lies and distortions" through "viral e-mails" that were flying around unchecked, according to a report in the Washington Post.  Axelrod called for "a chain e-mail of our own" to rebut "these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed."

(The New York Times today does some detective work on on the death panel rumor, tracing it back to some familiar roots - conservative pundits and media outlets. Read more about that here.)

Back in Bozeman, emotions are running high.

"We are huge fans," said Aimee Kissel, a city clerk who waited all night in line to get a ticket. "I'm a single mom. I've struggled with bills forever. I have a great job and great insurance, and I still can't afford to go to the doctor, with the co-pays and prescription co-pay. I only go to the doctor if I really, really have to."

Of course, there are buses of anti-reformers descending.

The war over health care reform is being taken to the streets in Colorado today. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Colorado Reps Jared Polis and Diana DeGette, all Dems, are touring a medical clinic for the homeless in Denver today, and the folks who have been mobilizing anti-health care reform turnout at Congressional town hall meetings are mobilizing big time for this one, reports the Colorado Independent. Anti-reform rally participants are being bused around the state on a 13-city tour by the group Americans for Prosperity on what it is calling its "Patients First Bus Tour."

The Denver Post's Michael Riley warns that the controversy will yield "the political version of trench warfare: brutal, mud-filled and bloody." Callers to Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., have accused him of promoting euthanasia, and Rep. Betsy Markey had 400 anti-reform protesters show up at her office last week, while pro-reform marchers staged a demonstration across the street.

It's happening in Pelosi's home state of California too, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. More than 500  people packed a Napa town hall this week hosted by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, some shouting down panelists by yelling "This is America!" and "What's wrong with profit?" the paper also reports that three upcoming town halls on tap by Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, one of the health care legislation co-authors, are the targets of one Tea Party group calling for a "counterprotest."