By Forest Adams, Correspondent

Some issues excite the constituency more than others, said U.S. Rep. John Kline (R- Lakeville). Immigration reform was one. Cap and trade was another. Health-care reform is the most recent.

Kline swung through Scott and Carver counties Monday (Aug. 31) to engage select members of his constituency in a dialogue about health-care reform. Absent were any raucous town hall meetings, similar to what has greeted many of his colleagues.

“The more traditional town hall is very useful when you have people who are concerned about an issue or want to come in and interact,” said Kline during his lunch-hour rest. “What has happened to some of my colleagues is these have become a forum for protest. I don’t know that I want to be the source of that.”

He was in safe company in Chanhassen when he told a small group of pharmacists at Center Drug he disagrees with the health-care reform bill currently in the U.S. House. The pharmacists told Kline they’d like to see language inserted into a future health-care reform bill addressing the issues of mail-order pharmacies and electronic prescriptions.

Kline nodded in agreement and said he’ll try. He admittedly doesn’t know what the final bill will look like by the time it gets to the House floor for a vote. That’s concerning to him.

"I really don't know what they'll bring forward," he said of the House leadership. "I'm afraid it will be a giant piece of legislation at the last minute that they expect us to pass. If it's anything like what they've got right now, I will vote, no. I would vote no twice if they'd let me, but they won't."

As the newly installed ranking member on the House Education and Labor Committee, Kline has been a vocal and visible opponent of the Democrat-led efforts, decrying the $1.3 trillion package as a job killer and an economy crippler. He reaffirmed those positions Monday by claiming he thinks passage of the Democrat reform proposal would result in more federal mandates on small business, as well as future higher taxes and unemployment.

In a recent newspaper commentary on the topic, he wrote: "Supporters of the bill being debated in Congress want to finance their reform on the backs of the small businesses that drive our economy... A national mandate on small businesses to provide health care would eliminate 1.6 million jobs over a five-year period, according to a study by the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation."

Forrest Adams can be reached at fadams@swpub.com.