Obama Hugs Cancer Victim at Health Town Hall

Your day in health care:

President Obama held a partially online health care town hall in suburban Virginia.

Part that dragged the most: His very long, statistics-laden opening statement -- so long there was only time for seven questions. (Watch the meeting here, read the transcript here).

Emotional high point: He hugged a woman in the audience after she tearfully told him she has renal cell carcinoma and no health insurance. He said he would try to help her and added, to applause, "I don't want you to feel all -- like you're alone." Her name is Debby Smith, she's 53 and she's from Appalachia, Va., according to the White House.

Least in-his-pocket questioner: Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican obstetrician, who popped up on YouTube to press Obama on his opposition to liability caps in malpractice suits. Texas has caps and they work, he said.

Doctors and hospitals "really are" negligent in some cases, Obama replied, so he doesn't want to impose caps. He reiterated his promise to work with providers to reduce the need for "defensive medicine" but also said that's not the only reason health care is so expensive. Caps in Texas have not kept costs down in McAllen, Obama said, referring to a town analyzed in an influential New Yorker article.

And, asked on Twitter and Facebook about taxing health care benefits from employers, Obama said he does not support taxing all benefits. He did not reject the idea of taxing benefits above a certain point (you get up to $13,000 in benefits tax-free, for instance, but the additional $4,000 cost of a "Cadillac plan" could be taxed).

But Obama said he still prefers his own plan to finance health reform. "I think the better way to do it remains the proposal I have to cap itemized deductions," he said. His bottom line: "If you've got health insurance right now, you shouldn't suddenly see your costs go up as part of health care reform."

In other health news, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs took a hazing over the stage-managed aspects of the town meeting. Before it started.

For the record, moderator Valerie Jarrett said at the outset that "the president has not seen the questions ahead of time. Absolutely not." Which is not to say any of them were surprising. In fact they were much like questions Obama took after a speech to the American Medical Association and during a town hall meeting organized and run by ABC.

A new Quinnipiac poll of more than 3,000 people, meanwhile, offered what might be good news for the White House. Nearly seven in 10 (68 percent) support Obama's proposal for a public health insurance option to compete with private plans. But only 28 percent say they'd choose the public option for themselves. That suggests a public plan would not necessarily drive private plans out of business, a case made by conservatives.

Americans aren't interested in paying much for health reform and they oppose a new tax on health care benefits 63 percent to 30 percent. They like Obama's financing proposal much better. By 55 percent to 40 percent, they support limiting tax deductions for people earning more than $250,000.

Our Capitolist, Patricia Murphy, has more here. And here's the full Quinnipiac analysis and poll.