Belgrade, Mont. ? Trying to lower the temperature of the health care fight, President Barack Obama on Friday denounced news media emphasis on angry protesters at town hall meetings.

Obama ventured west for the latest of his own town hall-style events, fielding polite but occasionally tough questions — one man declaring the president couldn’t pay for his plan without raising taxes. Tieless and rolling up his sleeves in campaign mode, Obama pitched his overhaul plan to a crowd in an airport hangar near Bozeman.

The president didn’t deny there have been angry outbursts by foes of his plan at town halls featuring Democratic lawmakers. But he said it was hardly the whole story.

“TV loves a ruckus,” Obama said. “What you haven’t seen on TV and what makes me proud are the many constructive meetings going on all over the country.”

While hundreds demonstrated outside, there was no sign of protesters on the airstrip where Air Force One landed or inside the hangar. Obama has another town hall today in Grand Junction, Colo.

Friday’s crowd, estimated by the White House at about 1,300 people, was mostly supportive, cheering Obama frequently, though he did get a few pointed questions. One came from Randy Rathie, who called himself “a proud NRA member,” referring to the National Rifle Association, and said he got most of his news from cable TV.

“You can’t tell us how you’re going to pay for this,” Rathie said of Obama’s health care overhaul. “The only way you’re going to get that money is raise our taxes.”

“You are absolutely right,” Obama said. “I can’t cover another 46 million people for free. I can’t do that. We’re going to have to find money from somewhere.”

He noted a congressional estimate that legislation being considered in the Senate could cost $800 billion to $900 billion over 10 years.

Obama has proposed higher taxes for families earning more than $250,000 a year. He said there were also other ways to find money, including streamlining the system and eliminating what he said were subsidies to insurance companies.

Later, Rathie told CNN he was “well-impressed” with how Obama handled his question. “Now he’s given me his word, personally, that he’s not going to raise my taxes,” Rathie said, but at the same time, “they’re trying to put in a program that they don’t even understand.”

Another participant, who said his job was selling health-insurance policies, asked Obama why he had changed his strategy from one of reaching out to insurance companies to “vilifying” them.

“My intent is not to vilify insurance companies,” Obama said. “I say, ‘Let’s work with the existing system.'” But he said some bad practices of insurance companies “are tough on people” and “have to change,” including such things as denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

It’s difficult, he said, to achieve true reform “unless we’ve got everybody covered.”

The president kicked off a four-state Western push for his plan with a pointed joke: He said Montana has bears, moose and elk, and “in Washington, you just have mostly bull.”