At a recent town hall held by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), an elderly gentleman named Jim Parker stood up and told the congressman that he was recently treated for colon cancer. “I did not have insurance,” he said, because “things didn’t quite work out” after he started his own business. Parker informed Kingston that “a friend of mine was in the same position, and we buried him last January.”

Kingston responded by telling the man that “you did do very well” because he was able to get treated when he arrived at the hospital. Parker responded, “I am functionally bankrupt!” Kingston cut him off and reiterated his point:

But you did get coverage. You didn’t get the insurance, but they won’t turn you down at the door. And we do need to focus on people like you. However, here’s the problem: among other things, in countries that have socialized medicine, you have longer waiting lines, you have bureaucracy…it does lead to rationing.

Watch it:

Kingston’s argument is a familiar conservative trope. In July 2007, President Bush claimed that “people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”

Of course, just going “to an emergency room” is what drives up health care costs for all Americans. “Access to emergency room care is not the same as access to comprehensive, coordinated, and timely health care services—the kind of care that coverage facilitates.” And as the town hall attendee noted, without insurance, a hospital visit commonly leaves Americans bankrupt.

Kingston has been telling the media that the August town halls have helped to defeat Obama’s health care plan. And he recently told Politico that the GOP is “going to keep the nightmare going through the fall.” A nightmare all too real for people like Jim Parker.

Johnny Piper, the mayor of Clarksville, TN, recently forwarded an anti-Muslim email urging all “patriotic Americans” to protest a U.S. Postal Service stamp that commemorates an Islamic holiday. Piper’s email falsely claims that the creation of the Eid stamp was ordered by President Obama. In fact, the stamp was first issued in 2001, during the Bush administration. It was reissued in 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Nevertheless, Piper is defending his email:

“I don’t see any reason why it would be inappropriate,” Piper said.

He said he forwarded the e-mail to provide “information” that others could make up their own minds about.

“I was surprised at a stamp being developed, and would have thought others would be, too,” he said. He added that he did not know what the stamp was commemorating.

“I laughed when I read it,” said Ahmed Joudah, head of the Islamic Center of Clarksville. “But at the same time, I felt sorry that we still have people around us that think that way.”

In a town hall forum conducted late last month in Bentonville, AR, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) admitted that health care rationing occurs in the United States. In a YouTube clip that is being celebrated by conservative bloggers, Coburn engages in a debate with a woman who supports a single-payer system.

Coburn argued that instituting a single-payer system would result in “rationing.” The town hall attendee astutely noted, “I feel like health care is rationed now.” Coburn responded, “Well, not near the extent it is in the countries that have single-payer.” In fact, countries with single-payer systems — like Australia and Canada — enjoy higher life-expectancy, lower infant mortality, and better cost efficiency.

Coburn quickly pivoted to a “tenther” argument, asking the woman: “Where do you find the authority in the U.S. Constitution for the federal government” to run a single-payer health care system? The crowd exploded with applause. Undeterred, the woman town hall participant quickly stumped Coburn:

TOWN HALL PARTICIPANT: Let me ask you a question about the Constitution. I’m not an expert on the Constitution, but we already have Social Security, we already have Medicare –

COBURN: And both of them are bankrupt. So you want to create another bankrupt program?

TOWN HALL PARTICIPANT: You know, we have to take care of people. [Crowd yells "no!"]

Coburn never responded to the woman’s constitutional argument. Watch it:

The town hall attendee who challenged Coburn was exactly right. Under the Oklahoma senator’s understanding of the Constitution, Medicare and Social Security would cease to exist. As Ian Millhiser writes, “[T]here is something fundamentally authoritarian about the tenther constitution. Social Security, Medicare, and health-care reform are all wildly popular, yet the tenther constitution would shackle our democracy and forbid Congress from enacting the same policies that the American people elected them to advance.”

A new Research 2000 poll released by Daily Kos shows that only a slight majority — 51 percent — of Kentuckians believe President Obama was born in this country. Twenty percent said they think he was born elsewhere, and 29 percent said they weren’t sure. “While 94 percent of black respondents said they think Obama was born in the United States, only 45 percent of white respondents were certain that he was born here.” The Lexington Herald-Reader reports, “Investigations by numerous media outlets, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact service of the St. Petersburg Times, have determined that Obama was born in Hawaii.”