By MERRILL HARTSON, Associated Press Writer Merrill Hartson, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 54 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Sen. Arlen Specter said Wednesday he thinks people who have been angrily disrupting town hall meetings on overhauling the health care system are "not necessarily representative of America," but should be heard.

"It's more than health care," said Specter, 79, who earlier this year left the Republican Party and became a Democrat. "I think there is a mood in America of anger with so many people unemployed, with so much bickering in Washington ... with the fear of losing their health care. It all boils over."

Specter and Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, appeared on a nationally broadcast news show Wednesday, a day after town hall meetings they hosted erupted in the same kind of catcalls, jeers and shouting that has characterized many such forums in recent weeks. "There were a couple of tough moments," McCaskill said of her experience, "but it lasted two hours and there were thousands of people there."

Jeers and taunts drowned out both Specter and McCaskill on occasion Tuesday. President Barack Obama was treated more respectfully at his town hall meeting in New Hampshire.

"You'll be gone, by God the bureaucrats will still be here," one man told Specter at a session in Lebanon, Pa.

"If they don't let us vent our frustrations out, they will have a revolution," Mary Ann Fieser of Hillsboro, Mo., told McCaskill at her Missouri health care forum. McCaskill admonished the rowdy crowd, saying "I don't understand this rudeness. I honestly don't get it."