Sen. Whitehouse speaks after session.

Sen Reed talks with attendees.

Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse were peppered with questions about health care reform during a well-attended community dinner hosted in the Johnston Senior Center this evening. There were about at least 200 attendees filling all all the seats and standing area; cars were parked all along the streets down to Hartford Pike and all through a subdivision under construction behind the center. I was liveblogging and you can follow the record of the event on my Twitter feed.

Both Whitehouse and Reed reiterated their support for the public option, and while I couldn't get close enough to ask a question, several in a contingent of doctors (complete with white coats and stethoscopes, a nice touch) voiced their support and pushed on what I think is the key issue: support for the public option all the way through the process. Sen. Whitehouse said, "I'm not walking away at all from covering everyone." Sen. Reed noted that reconciliation is still not the only end game and said, "we're still trying to get a bill through."

There was an outstanding question from the audience asking why, in any public plan, there should be advertising for prescription drugs. Reed noted that there was a proposal dealing with that question in the House. Whitehouse added his hope that reform would include the option to negotiate drug prices.

Several (to my mind, tangential) questions were raised the specter of "illegal immigrants" draining the system, and the Senators explained that nothing in the Senate plan would address this issue, with Whitehouse saying that reform was already "too freighted" to take on the additional task. There were additional astroturf questions along this line: tort reform, pork, and Medicare waste. At least I didn't hear anybody question the constitutionality, but I might have missed a question or two saying hello to Pat Crowley from RI Future who was also there.

Near the end, someone asked what I feel to be the most disturbingly central question of all: How did we, as a country, get to a place where we care so little about the 50 million people who have no health care coverage? Especially when we know, most of us all too well, the lingering fear that comes with job-based health care in this economic climate. Most of us serve at the will of our employer, and our health care hangs by that same slender thread.

I want to publicly thank Sen. Reed and Sen. Whitehouse for their willingness to engage on this issue, and for their strong support of the public option.

A few pictures up on Flickr

Update: Crowd estimate revised based on multiple news reports.

Update 2: Much more detailed summary than mine by Brian Hull (the new owner and editor of!) RI Future. Justin Katz at Anchor Rising has full video.