Across America this August, Congressmen and Senators are holding town hall meetings about the Democrats plan for health care “reform,” and many have met with strong opposition to what is being perceived by the public as a government takeover of health care. Senator and Doctor Tom Coburn held a town hall this weekend at my old high school where he spoke before an audience of nearly 1,000 Oklahomans anxious about the plan floating around the halls of Congress. “Dr. No”, as he’s been called, is a uniquely qualified voice on the issue of health care, given that he’s the only practicing family physician and obstetrician in the Senate.

A little background on my perspective on this: I grew up an Okie. Born in Houston, I lived my early years in the cold, harsh North of Detroit, but just after turning ten, my father moved our family south — to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Most people you ask don’t know much, if anything, about Tulsa. It’s a sleepy mid-sized city, bigger now then when I lived there, nestled in the foothills of Northeastern Oklahoma in an area called “Green Country”. Tulsa is middle class America — a city where high school football, God and guns are an important part of everyday life.

Coburn’s meeting wasn’t held at the football stadium, but the atmosphere in the 800 seat auditorium in the main building of the high school was not unlike that on the field, under the lights. The anxious, excited, nervous attendees wanted to hear, straight from the horse’s mouth, what to expect from this new legislation. Many of them had seen the news, witnessed replays of town hall meetings across the country that had devolved into shouting matches, or with the Member of Congress walking out or talking on the phone, instead of answering the numerous questions being raised from their constituents. People in this room, simply by attending, allowed themselves to be dubbed as “Un-American” Nazi-invokers, at least according to Nancy Pelosi. But they were skeptical, and they wanted answers.

Some pundits have taken to calling these people “crazy” for questioning this reform package. Rick Perlstein said the other day that the “lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protester’s signs” where “too uniform to be spontaneous,” harkening back to the liberal argument that they’re “astroturfers”, organized by some master GOP conspiracy – crazy conservatives who just don’t understand what’s good for them and the country. However, as Senator Coburn pointed out to his crowd Friday night, “the assumption that if you’re not for what President Obama is for you’re against health-care reform is wrong.”

For many in what has been dubbed “The Mob,” this is exactly true. Americans of all stripes have had a bad health care experience. We all know someone who was canceled by their insurance company after the first claim in several years, or people who seem stuck with exorbitant prices for coverage, and even friends and neighbors who lost their coverage when they were laid off in the recent economic downturn.

All those issues aside though, it’s hard to find another country where people aren’t as satisfied by the amazing care they do receive, and I’m not talking polling people, those mysterious few thousand folks who picked up their phone when Gallup or Rasmussen called, I’m talking about average Americans. Think about the amazing stories from your own life. I had a close friend who received cutting edge treatment for cancer that put her in remission, beating back her disease for several years. This treatment that wasn’t available in Canada, or Europe where government controlled medicine wouldn’t have deemed it unproven and not cost effective, but it was available in the United States, and it saved her life. People come from those countries here – they come to America for treatment. The wealthy in Europe, hop a BA flight to New York or Minneapolis or Houston when something goes horribly awry.

The anger at these town halls, the activism that it’s driving, from both the left and the right, illustrate that this isn’t just about health care. Issues at Coburn’s event Friday night ranged from the failed stimulus to energy policy to campaign finance reform and even fears of growing socialism in our national policies and many of these gatherings have similar stories. Americans are both worried on the right, and frustratingly excited on the left. Those on the left saw Obama as a harbinger of immediate and sweeping change and as Americans are wont to do, many of them thought that change would be as quick as their order at their local fast food chain of choice. But the world has not turned so quickly, and least not for the left. It was shocking to watch them heckle Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisors, at this year’s Netroots Nation gathering — the same woman who was greeted with raucous applause at last year’s event in Austin. They questioned his inability to immediately end dealings with Blackwater, that supposedly evil company working for the Defense Department in war zones in the middle east, or Obama’s refusal to release embarrassing photos of detainee abuse, and even wondering why the Defense of Marriage Act wasn’t pitched to the dustbin of history yet. Other liberal activists harassed and assaulted a disabled woman at a town hall last week. Is that really called for? Some on the left see this as their chance to get a firm win from their new President, turning the tide on their first major issue — but their actions have driven moderates and independents in the other direction.

On the right, many see this as the first step of another kind — an encroaching government that seeks to control more and more of their everyday lives. There is a stark realization setting in to many American households that elections have consequences and those consequences are felt in the legislation that Congress and the President seek to pass on health care, Cap and Trade, and higher taxes.

I am skeptical of this health care reform. Coming from a medical family, I’m worried what a government backed “public option” or “co-op” may mean for the industry I grew up observing. Will young, bright Americans shy away from medicine if they can’t make the care decisions they would like because a bureaucrat is ultimately in charge? Will they leave for careers as lawyers or engineers instead of becoming physicians because they can’t afford to pay back all their many, many years of schooling that it takes to become a doctor on a new government mandated reimbursement rate? I am uneasy with all this, as many Americans are. Most of all, I am nervous about how all this will effect the quality of care I can receive, and that my kids may one day receive.

Politics is about a lot more than just kissing babies. Answering questions shouldn’t be something politicians are afraid of — and if they are, it’s usually not a good sign. If I had been back home last weekend, I would have joined my mother, my brother, my friends and my neighbors at that town hall asking questions, searching for what I could do to change the course of this debate, change the tenor of things in Washington, and get reforms from Capitol Hill that make things better, not just hand things over to more bureaucracy. If that means that I am the mob, so be it.

Read more at Brad Jackson’s blog.