U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, visiting a Denver clinic for the homeless Thursday, insisted that Democrats are united in backing health care reform and brushed off a question of whether raucous, conservative-led protests against reform have hurt the effort.
“This is called the legislative process,” she said during a brief question-and-answer period after touring the Stout Street Clinic in downtown Denver. “There are differences of opinions. This is the democratic process. . . . This is a very big initiative, to change health care in America.”
Pelosi’s visit to the clinic — to see and tout the impact of stimulus funds — came at a time when the national debate over health care has escalated into a figurative shouting match.
The shouting match became a literal reality outside the clinic Thursday, as people skeptical of more government involvement in health care traded chants and slogans with others who support sweeping reforms.
When one person in the crowd shouted, “Health care can’t wait,” a rival responded, “We have health care now.” A woman walked among the demonstrators singing “God Bless America” in a warbling voice.
Inside the clinic, Pelosi said she welcomed the time during Congress’ August recess for representatives to talk with their constituents about the issue.
“The plan for August,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “is to have a discussion, to listen carefully to what people are saying.”
Pelosi’s visit provided a peg on which supporters and detractors of Democrats’ health plans could hang their competing agendas.
In a conference call earlier in the day, state GOP chairman Dick Wadhams blasted House Democrats’ plan as a “back-door way” of destroying private health insurance and creating a health care system that is solely government-run.
“Single-payer,” Wadhams said, using the political parlance for such a system, “will drive up the cost of health care and drive down the quality. It will end up rationing health care.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, from Aurora, said in a statement, “Mrs. Pelosi and her Democrat colleagues yet again failed to explain how they plan to pay for their trillion-dollar government takeover of our health care system.”
Pelosi, though, drew support from Democratic U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette of Denver and Jared Polis of Boulder, both of whom toured the clinic with her.
“People should not be scared by scare tactics,” said DeGette, who said the plan must not add to the federal deficit. “They should find out the details of this legislation.”
Pelosi said Democrats’ health care plan would not lead to a single-payer system, instead saying a plan including a so-called public option would preserve people’s choice to keep their private health insurance.
“If you like what you have, you can keep it,” she said.
Pelosi rattled off a list of other benefits she said the plan would have — including tax credits to small businesses and secure coverage for seniors.
Representatives for Colorado’s other three Democratic House members — John Salazar, Ed Perlmutter and Betsy Markey — said their bosses had other obligations that prevented them from attending the tour.
Pish-poshing reports of squabbling between liberal and conservative Democrats, Pelosi insisted members of the party were on the same page — if not the same paragraph.
“Do we have a diversity of opinion? Yes,” she said. “But we do not have a split in the party.”
Proposals of a big health care overhaul also won support from John Parvensky, the president and chief executive of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which operates the clinic. Parvensky said he is in favor of reforms to health insurance regulations as well as continued efforts to improve “safety net” programs for the most needy. Eighty-five percent of Stout Street’s patients are uninsured, he said.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
