"Health care is not the only threat to our democracy," he latter added, pointing to other Democratic policy priorities.
Herger spoke to constituents about the controversial plans before Congress that have dominated town hall meetings across the country during the August recess.
Herger, for one, vowed to oppose the proposed public (or "government-run") option for consumers with "everything that I have."
He also praised one constituent who described himself as a "proud, right-wing terrorist," mimicking language in a Department of Homeland Security report earlier this year warning of domestic threats from conservative critics of certain policies.
"There is a great American," the twelve-term Republican lawmaker responded.
Democrats who have balked at supporting healthcare reform, not Republicans, are the problem when it comes to passing a bill this year, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) proclaimed Friday night.
Weiner, who's led a revolt of liberal Democrats in the House this past week against the idea of dropping a public option from the health bill, said that centrist Democrats are out-of-touch with the "mother ship" on healthcare, and encouraged Democrats to unite on the bill.
"One thing we have to stop doing is negotiating against ourselves," Weiner said during an appearance on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. "I mean, every time I turn on the television, find another Democrat or even sometimes the president backing away from the basic principles that are going to make health reform work -- and we have to stop that."
Weiner cast aspersions toward Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee who have huddled in negotiations with Republicans on healthcare, as well as recalcitrant Democrats in the House.
"I mean, it`s pretty clear, and you had this group of members of the House and Senate, none of whom are in touch with the mother ship," Weiner said. "You know, you have these guy who basically are the problem."
He advised Democrats to work amongst themselves to solve reform.
"I think that what we should be doing is trying to figure out what we, as Democrats, who are elected to turn this country around, what we should be thinking of doing," Weiner added.
Republicans are unlikely to back healthcare reform just because they're offered tort reform in the bill, one House conservative declared Friday afternoon.
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said that GOP-ers were unlikely to defect to back the Democrat-crafted bill in any circumstance.
"That's an interesting thought," Lamborn said on the Fox Business Network when asked if by offering reform of medical malpractice lawsuits, President Obama could win Republican votes for his health reform effort.
"Tort reform has not been part of this bill up until now, so it's not really a serious bill," he added. "I don't think they'll be able to pick off a few republicans under any circumstances."
Tort reform has long been a prized issue of Republicans, seen as a way of limiting the work of trial lawyers (who are generally supportive of Democrats), while eliminating a factor in the inflationary prices of healthcare.
Republican centrist senators who have participated in negotiations on crafting a bipartisan healthcare bill have been among those targeted and pressured by political and business interests during the August recess, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) claimed Friday.
Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and leader of the so-called "group of six" senators negotiating a reform bill, said that the three Republican members of that group have been under tremendous pressure from their own party.
"The Republican leadership in the Senate and in the House is doing its utmost to kill this bill," Baucus told the editorial board of the Helena Independent Record. "They are putting intense political pressure on Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snow and Mike Enzi, to bow out, because they want to kill it."
Baucus pointed specifically to the prospects of his committee's ranking member, Sen. Grassley, potentially facing a primary challenge next year over his work on the healthcare bill.
"He knows a lot of the opposition against him is orchestrated," he said. "I don't know this, but I strongly suspect they're going to Iowa, they're trying to stir things up to get somebody to run against Chuck in the primary."
Baucus said he doesn't believe that Grassley would abandon the negotiations, but offered words of sympathy for the Iowa Republican and the other two senators working on putting together a bill.
"I know it's easy for me to say right now, because I'm getting beat up by both sides, but not nearly as much as you are by the Republican hierarchy," he said.
President Obama has played "fast and loose with the facts" in the debate over healthcare reform, Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) argued in the GOP's weekly radio address on Saturday.
Drawing on his experience as a physician, Price asserted that the president's efforts to combat alleged misinformation in the debate over his health proposals have only spread more misinformation.
It's become apparent that the Department of Homeland Security's terror threat level system were part of the Bush administration's "political toolbox," Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said Friday.
Reacting to former Secretary Tom Ridge's revelations in a forthcoming book that he was pressured to raise the threat level around election time, Moran said liberals' suspicions about the manipulation of the system have been confirmed.
"I think the threat alert was the kind of tool they would bring out in their political toolbox," Moran said during an appearance on MSNBC this afternoon.
"Tom is essentially confirming what many of us suspected: the timing was suspicious," he explained. "The reason that George Bush was reeelected in 2004 was because largely because people were scared, and they felt that he would be toughest on the perceived enemies, real or unreal."
Moran blamed the Bush administration for manipulating Americans' sense of fear of another terrorist attack via the infamous, color-coded threat level system.
"I do think that the Bush administration had a habit of using emotions like fear and the need for security and so on for its own political advantage," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and conservative nemesis Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are doing a book club of their own during the August congressional recess.
"But one thing I did before I left, Harry Reid is actually a friend of mine, and he and I agreed to read each other's book over the break," DeMint said. "So I read his book, and it gave me a little insight into how my opponents think."
DeMint published "Saving Freedom," about stopping America's "slide into socialism, last month. Reid published "The Good Fight," a somewhat autobiographical tome, last May.
"So hopefully he'll read my book, and we'll get a chance to talk about it," DeMint added, explaining that he'd given a copy to each Republican senator as well.
Republicans are making a "serious mistake" by thinking that stopping Democrats' healthcare reform will result in political victories in 2010, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) warned.
Waxman asserted that GOP-ers would be in error to look to the 1994 healthcare fight, in which they blocked President Bill Clinton's reform efforts, as a template for the 2009 fight.
"They are looking at the playbook from 1993 and 1994 where the Republicans pulled someone like Bob Dole back from working out a deal on healthcare in order to deny President Clinton a victory," Waxman said. "And they were rewarded in the election in '94."
"They are playing that same card again, but this time it's not going to work," he added.
Waxman, the chairman of one of the three committees crafting healthcare legislation in the House, signaled that Republican support wouldn't be essential to passing legislation if members of the GOP refuse to play ball on negotiations.
"I think it's always important for legislation to be bipartisan," he said. "But you don't always achieve that goal. If the Republicans don't want it because they want to deny Obama a political success, you don't stop your efforts."
The House's healthcare reform bill will have to be changed before it can even win a majority among Democrats, one centrist, Blue Dog Democrat insisted Friday.
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), who opposed the health bill on the Ways and Means committee, signaled that Democrats may not even have the votes to force through a preliminary health bill without any Republican support.
"And in order to get a majority even among the Democratic Party, we're going to have to change the way that House bill is formatted right now," Altmire said during an appearance on Fox News.
Those words come after liberal Democrats strongly signaled to President Obama earlier this week that a publicly available health plan would be essential to winning their votes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she wouldn't be able to pass a bill without a public option.
Altmire said there would need to be differences of opinion resolved within the Democratic caucus on the health bill before the legislation moves forward.
"There is a difference of opinion on a lot of issues," he said. "These are not insignificant issues, and there are differences of opinion."
The Pennsylvania Democrat said that he's still hopeful a health bill will pass by the end of the year, but said the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would need to offer a much more favorable assessment of the bill's fiscal impact before it wins his vote.
"Until I see some third-party validation through the CBO and others that the bills that we're going to be called to vote on actually bring down the cost of healthcare and restrain the rate of growth, I'm not going to be able to support it." Altmire explained.
Senators should explore breaking the healthcare reform bill before Congress into smaller pieces, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Friday.
Reacting to recent reports that lawmakers may break the bill into pieces so as to be able to pass some non-controversial elements, Barrasso, who's been at the forefront of the healthcare debate for the GOP, endorsed the idea.
"I like the idea of breaking it into pieces," he said on CNN Radio. "See what we can get done right now then move onto the next thing."
Some senators, most notably the centrists comprising the so-called "group of six" trying to hash out a bipartisan bill, have been exploring either trimming or breaking up the bill.
Barrasso defended that tactic, as well as other Republican efforts on the bill, as in the best interests of the country.
"This isn't about political calculation, it's about doing what's best for the people of our country," he said.
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