Congress is back in session, but Kodiakans have not missed their chance to ask Sen. Lisa Murkowski about health care legislation. The Republican senator will appear via video conference at the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium at Kodiak High School on Monday at 11:30 a.m.

Organized by the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce, the conference will connect the audience directly to Murkowski’s office in Washington. Kodiakans also can send questions for the senator to health@kodiak.org and listen to the meeting on KMXT.

The virtual town hall meeting is Kodiak’s entry into a Congressional debate that has become a public discussion at hundreds of similar town-hall meetings across the country this summer.

At stake are the terms of a major reworking of the national health care system.

Concerned with high costs, Murkowski opposed a recent version of health care reform that came before her in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Although she believes the national health care system is broken, she favors fixing it piece-by-piece instead of with a single bill.

One less-controversial aspect of the health care overhaul she supports is a plan to make it harder for insurers to drop their clients when they become sick.

“When it comes to things like rescissions, these are issues that we can work together on” she said after President Barrack Obama’s Wednesday night address to Congress.

But like some Democratic and many Republican colleagues, Murkowski is concerned about a public option.

The proposed public option is an effort to drop the price of health insurance by inducing competition ­— either through a government-run insurance plan, nonprofit co-operatives, or a public plan that would be triggered in states with insufficient affordable private insurance.

“The president said that a public option is still on the table,” she said. “I think that conventional wisdom is that a public option doesn’t have the support, and will not pass through committee.”

Legislators working on the health care overhaul face combined challenges of reducing steep inflation of health care costs, covering the nation’s millions of uninsured and improving quality of care. Americans currently pay substantially more for health care than citizens of other developed nations, but do not necessarily receive better care.

The opposition is concerned with increasing the federal government’s role in health care, as well the challenge of funding the reforms. The federal government currently operates under its largest deficit since World War II.

Previous town hall meetings this year have drawn large and vocal crowds concerned with health care reform. Democratic legislators in particular have faced shouting protesters opposed to proposed reforms.

Alaska’s town hall meetings in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Wasilla, Soldotna and Juneau have been well-attended but civil when led either by Sen. Murkowski or Democratic Sen. Mark Begich.

Chamber Executive Director Debora King looks for a big audience at Monday’s virtual town hall:

“We hope to pack it in. Given the time of day, we know it is going to be difficult for many people to attend. But we had to account for the four-hour time difference between Kodiak and Washington,” she said.

Among the expected audience members is a civics class from KHS experiencing a real-life demonstration on participatory democracy.

The meeting is Sen. Murkowski’s first use of this technology to communicate with her constituents. She hopes to hold more virtual town hall meetings if Kodiak’s is successful The senator previously discussed health care with constituents throughout the state through a “tele-town hall meeting.”

The Kodiak Chamber or Commerce plans to organize a similar town hall meeting with Begich later this fall.

Mirror writer Sam Friedman can be reached via e-mail at sfriedman@kodiakdailymirror.com.