The questions foremost on Nanette Schmitt’s mind Thursday night, as she and husband John waited for the town hall meeting on health care reform to begin at the UAW Hall on Washington Road, was what will happen in Washington when proponents and opponents of the proposed health plans return to Capitol Hill in September.

“Will it be something they ram down our throats? Will they debate it openly or scrap everything and start over? My second question is: Fix Medicare and Medicaid first,” said Nanette, 59, a Kenosha homemaker and self-described political independent.

Joe, 61, wondered: “Who decided we don’t have money for Social Security, but still this is going to go through without costing any money? I don’t understand how that’s going to work.”

They were among 101 people who came to hear Paulette Garin, Ed Crouse and Jeff Weidner speak on the issues at United Auto Workers Local 72 headquarters. Afterward, the three fielded written questions submitted by the audience.

Weidner, a Kenosha Fire Department firefighter and member of Firefighters Local 414, said he came to speak about the “end of the line.”

“The end of the line in health care is EMS (emergency medical service),” Weidner said, citing the huge reliance of the uninsured and underinsured on 911 calls to deal with medical issues that otherwise would be routine doctor visits, or, for lack of health insurance, have led to critical illness requiring paramedic treatment, transport and emergency room care.

While not advocating for a particular plan, he made it clear that without serious health care reform the costs will continue to rise and continue to be subsidized by taxpayers.

Garin, is the state coordinator of Progressive Democrats of America and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care. She and Crouse, of the Chicago Single-Payer Action Network, focused their remarks on the weaknesses of both U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan — H.R. 2520 — and the Obama Plan,

Among other things, Garin said, Ryan’s plan privatizes Medicare, allowing private insurance companies to continue to be the main players in a healthcare system badly in need of reform due to the profit motives driving those same companies. She said the Obama Plan refers to “basic, enhanced and premium” coverage, without defining the terms or what coverage would apply.

Instead, she and Crouse strongly advocated for a national single-payer plan to provide universal health coverage to all Americans under H.R. 676, a bill authored by Michigan Congressman John Conyers’s known as The United States National Health Care Act.

Conyers’ bill eliminates private insurance companies and replaces them with a single-payer system, with the government paying all medical bills: no co-pays, no deductibles, no denial of care, which Garin and Crouse touted as a win-win for everybody, comparing it to opening Medicare to enrollment for all Americans regardless of age, pre-existing conditions and relative health risks.

When a question from an audience member asked, “When did we become socialists?”, Crouse pointed to socialization of risk represented by the financial bailouts enacted federally during the current economic crisis, as well as the healthcare benefits provided to military veterans. At the same time, Crouse noted the “inherent conservatism” at the core of the single-payer approach.

According to Garin, H.R. 676 combines the best proposals from “the left and the right” while upholding Obama’s principles of “everybody in and nobody out,” without rationing care, providing automatic coverage for life regardless of employment status and assuring free choice of doctors and hospitals — the overall cost covered by a 6.6 percent payroll tax.

Crouse said the only way universal health care could work in a competitive environment would be to regulate private insurers to non-profit status. “You shouldn’t make profits on people,” Crouse told the audience to sustained applause. “You shouldn’t negotiate human rights in the market place.”

State Sen. Bob Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie, invited to the stage to speak, told the audience: “I always say we’re working under a failed business plan, and we’ve got to change it ... We get frustrated hearing all the plans out there. But look at the plan we have now. It’s good for the status quo. There are people making a lot of money with it, but there are a lot of people dying.”