Louise Slaughter: Angry town halls are not new (appeared with Potter)

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090812/pl_politico/26055_1

A veteran of the Clinton-era health care wars reminded reporters Wednesday that angry town hall meetings aren't a recent phenomenon.

"This is not new," House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) told a group of reporters in the Capitol. "This has happened before."

Back in the early-1990s, Slaughter held two spirited town hall meetings in her Upstate New York district before the third broke into chaos, she said, after members of the John Birch Society sparked a small uprising.

But she did admit that those past fights weren't "quite as severe" as this year's version, in which lawmakers from both parties have been shouted down at usually staid town hall meetings by opponents of the Democrats' comprehensive health care plan.

(snip)
Slaughter, the often-unscripted Rules chair, appeared with a former insurance executive who reiterated his case that the industry is waging another shadow campaign to scuttle comprehensive health care reform in the hopes that Congress will approve a more modest proposal that would bolster their bottomlines - and shareholder value.

"The industry is up to the same dirty tricks," said Wendell Potter, a former head of corporate communications for insurance giant CIGNA.



Former CIGNA Vice President Wendell Potter, left, who has become a whistleblower regarding the health care industry, accompanied by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009.

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