Washington ? The escalating protests greeting members of Congress as they come home from Washington are leaving enduring images of anger about health care reform, causing some to avoid or cancel town hall events.

A raucous demonstration in St. Louis County, Mo., on Thursday evening at a town hall meeting on aging hosted by Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., mirrored feisty gatherings across the country the past week.

While six people were arrested in St. Louis County on Thursday, a scuffle ended a Tampa, Fla., town hall meeting the same night featuring protesters on both sides of the health care reform debate. In New York, meanwhile, newly elected Rep. Scott Murphy, a Democrat and a Missouri native, was met by protesters toting placards that read: “Obamacare Seniors beware! Rationing is here.”

President Barack Obama’s administration, which is having problems selling its proposed changes in the health care system, is encouraging supporters in Congress to reach out to voters during the August recess and counseling them on handling town hall settings.

But the heightened polarization is prompting some members of Congress to question the wisdom of meeting people in unscripted settings and to seek alternative ways to interact with voters.

“I won’t be doing sucker-punch town hall meetings,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate’s assistant majority leader. “They can do all the political theater they want, but I don’t have to supply the stage for them.”

At a meeting Saturday in Des Moines, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, was interrupted several times by people in the audience shouting criticism and questions, even though he said he didn’t expect Iowans to take part in what he called “scare tactics, misinformation and obstruction.”

Conservative activist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, described the town hall protests as an evolution of the sentiments that started taking shape during the so-called Tea Bag protests last spring.

“You try to figure out why this is happening,” he said. “People hear $1 trillion for the stimulus, another trillion for the deficit and another trillion for health care. I thought they might think it’s the same trillion. But it’s getting through, all this spending.”