A different kind of tea party: Health-care town hall meeting had a calmer tone than raucous rallies, attendees said.

By Joshunda Sanders

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
 
Anne McAfee went to the Capitol on Saturday for what she hoped would be a civil discussion about health-care reform.

“I’ve been really unhappy with all the shouting and carrying on,” McAfee, 78, said, referring to health-care reform rallies that have been held in Austin and nationwide.
 
Compared with other rallies and town hall meetings, Saturday’s discussion hosted by the Austin Tea Party Patriots — a self-described conservative grass-roots group that has organized two other tea party rallies this year — was pretty tame, attendees said.

Some health-care meetings this summer have featured attendees carrying signs for or against health-care reform and were marked by bipartisan shouting at politicians.

Videos have circulated recently on YouTube of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, an Austin Democrat who supports the health plan backed by President Barack Obama, besieged by critics of the plan in the parking lot of a Southwest Austin grocery store. At the event earlier this month, people opposed to Democratic health-care reform proposals chanted, “Just say no” and “Don’t vote for Doggett,” prompting the politician to leave the event early.

But Austin Tea Party Patriots organizers, Austin lawyer Greg Holloway and his wife, Judy, who helped throw an April 15 tea party to protest federal spending, e-mailed invitations last week that asked people to “leave our ‘for’ and ‘against’ signs at home and to focus on learning about real alternatives.”

And that’s pretty much what the crowd of about 100 did.

Dr. Clare Gray, founder of Physicians for Reform, a group that seeks “to unite doctors, patients and the business community to reduce health-care costs without government mandates,” gave a two-hour lecture that was part philosophy, part policy.

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