“I know there are some good things in here,” Issa said. “We shouldn’t throw this away. We should recycle it.”

Next week, President Barack Obama will deliver a major prime-time health care address to Congress, opening an effort to gain control of the debate that has been slipping from his grasp under withering attacks from opponents.

Roughly 20 percent of Californians are without any health insurance, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy. Health groups say about 45 million Americans have no health insurance.

Most of the people who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting in Vista said they were against reforms such as a publicly funded health program to cover the uninsured.

“I am here to speak about the 21 programs we have in California that would cover most of the uninsured,” Paula Wilson of Temecula said shortly before the meeting. “If we could get them to sign up, we could cover most of the people that are uninsured.”

But there were some who said there must be a public option to compete with private insurers and help drive down costs.

Some of those people left the meeting feeling disappointed.

“He (Issa) is going to tell you what the people want to hear,” said Pat Jones of Rancho Bernardo as she left the auditorium.

An estimated 1,500 people sat inside the gym fanning themselves with sheets of paper and picket signs to cool off. Another similar-sized crowd sat on benches and stood in an overflow area outside the gym where the meeting was broadcast through loudspeakers.

People who wanted to ask questions were picked at random through a lottery system.

Among those in the crowd, many carried homemade signs with statements such as: “Moms 4 a public option” and “Obamacare makes me sick.”

Unlike other town hall meetings that have made headlines, most of the questions at Wednesday’s meeting were about whether medical costs should be capped by the government, or whether the government should bar insurance companies from discriminating against people who have pre-existing medical conditions.

High school student Colton Borsch asked what the congressman would do to cover the nation’s uninsured population.

Issa said he would favor making health insurance as affordable as possible so that those who want it can purchase it.

Issa said he introduced a bill, House Resolution 3438, that would allow people to buy into the same health care benefit plans that members of Congress and federal employees have. He also said he favors protecting doctors from lawsuits and having peer review boards to guard against malpractice.

The threat of lawsuits forces doctors to practice “defensive medicine,” he said, meaning that they order unnecessary tests and procedures to protect themselves.

Borsch said he was pleased with the congressman’s answer.

“I think it was really good, actually,” he said.

Call staff writer Edward Sifuentes at 760-740-3511.