Good morning, I’m Elizabeth Wynne Johnson; this is Power Breakfast from Capitol News Connection.

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This summer, as images poured in from angry health care town halls across the country, advocates for rural communities decided their folks were getting a bad rap.  Today, at a congressional briefing on rural issues in health care reform, those advocates hope to set a different tone…

JAMES:  There’s a lot of us that are not yelling. We’re pleading. We’re asking… [music]

“James” of Union City, Tennessee is featured in a short documentary that will be screened at today’s briefing. So is “Mayor Smith” of Haywood County, Tennessee.

MAYOR:  I’m a cancer survivor. I had cancer six years ago. Now I go have a blood test every six months but as far as go have a physical- I ain’t had a physical in the last three years…

In general, rural health care poses challenges that transcend partisan posturing.  Like access to hospitals.  And Medicare reimbursement rates.  But the matter of how to address those challenges cuts straight to the core of ideas that divide this Congress. Republican Lee Terry of Nebraska says he hears from providers who oppose the House prescription for reform.

TERRY:  With the public option plan that pays at Medicare rates, the critical care hospitals – the rural, small hospitals, 8-bed type places – say that they’ll go broke under that system.

Organizers of today’s congressional briefing say the Democrats’ plans for health care reform can serve the urban poor without taking away from rural areas.  States that will be represented today include South Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Nebraska, Tennessee and Missouri.

In the mood for something completely different? Check out the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing on "Investigating the Nature of Matter, Energy, Space and Time."

That’s Power Breakfast from Capitol News Connection.