A gathering on health care reform brought out people from all sides of the issue Tuesday afternoon at the corner of Ninth and Kentucky streets. Chris Warholic, center, a third-year resident in family medicine at Kansas University Medical Center, took time to share his view.

Chris Warholic, a third-year medical resident at Kansas University Medical Center, showed up in his scrubs Tuesday at Ninth and Kentucky streets to show his support for health care reform.

“I work underserved clinics. I work western Kansas,” Warholic, who is studying family medicine, said. “I can tell you story after story of people who have basically suffered because of the health care system.”

Local organizers of the group MoveOn.org were looking for honks and waves in support of reform outside the Lawrence office of Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan.

“(Moore) has spoken out strongly and consistently in favor of the public option, and we want to show him that we have his back,” said Jo Andersen, a local council coordinator for MoveOn.

The public option would be a government health insurance program similar to Medicare that would be available to all citizens.

Just across Ninth Street, a group against health care reform set up camp to deny that a public option is the right one.

“They’re misrepresenting how many Americans are without health care and why they don’t have health care,” said Richard Fry, a member of the citizen advocacy group November Patriots. “They shouldn’t be able to impose those things among the citizens.”

Both sides are just hoping their arguments are heard.

“That’s the fundamental problem that we have with government right now,” Fry said. “It absolutely will not listen.”

But supporters believe the majority of Americans want public health care.

“Only with a real public option to private health insurance can we get the changes that we need,” Andersen said.