CANON CITY • “I feel that Obama wants to change us from a democratic republic to a fascist dictatorship,” a woman said, setting the tone for U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s town hall meeting Tuesday at Cañon City City Hall.

It was the second of three public forums the Colorado Springs Republican has scheduled for the August congressional recess, and as in the first one in Woodland Park, President Barack Obama’s health care reform proposals were the hot-button issue.

Democratic-sponsored health care insurance reform bills now before the House and Senate would require all Americans to carry health insurance, with the federal government subsidizing the premiums of those who can’t afford it.

Supporters say the proposals will provide relief to more than 40 million uninsured Americans and put a brake on health care costs that are careening out of control. Critics say the country cannot afford to insure everybody and charge that a government-run insurance program will wreck the nation’s health care system.

Lamborn said requiring health insurance “takes away the freedom of choice, and that’s not the America that I want.”

About 175 attended Tuesday’s meeting, slightly fewer than in Woodland Park on Aug. 18. Both times the turnout was mostly in opposition to the health care proposals, and to the president.

One white-haired woman with a portable oxygen bottle teetered up to the microphone, looked out at the mostly middle-aged-and-older audience and said, “I think, according to Obama’s plan, we’re toast.”

Lamborn’s last questioner Tuesday urged him to spread the word that Obama is a communist. “What are you gonna do to stop this man?” he yelled.

But supporters of the Democratic plans were represented here. The first questioner said the last days of his father, a government employee, had been ruined by a hip replacement, laser eye surgery and other unnecessary procedures, and he challenged Lamborn’s assertion that the bill would result in care rationing. When the questioner said a government-run health insurance plan was “a good thing,” he was loudly booed.

Lamborn said his main objection to the proposals is the cost to consumers, their employers and state governments. Independent estimates peg the cost of the health care proposals at $80 billion to $100 billion a year, mostly paid for by tax increases on Americans with annual incomes above $350,000.

Lamborn’s final town hall of the summer is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday in the clubhouse of the Valley Hi golf course, 610 S Chelton Road.

—Contact the writer at 476-1654

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