"I wonder if Bill Pascrell will show?" he asked, as the auditorium inside the United Way building on South Fullerton Avenue filled up fast.

Most of the residents were elderly. All were gathered to hear four 8th District congressional candidates and 10th District Rep. Donald Payne speak out on the is-sues.

Two weeks ago, Fortunato had circulated a letter inviting Republican Party candidate Anthony Fusco and Rep. William Pascrell Jr. to debate the issues in public. Fusco agreed. As did Independent Party candidate Viji Sargis. Yet, although Pascrell issued a statement saying that he would be "more than willing to debate any and all candidates on the ballot for this November's election," the incumbent Democratic congressman was not specific in giving a date, time or place where such a debate would be held.

Just prior to Monday's "Meet The Candidates" forum sponsored by the Montclair chapter of the AARP, a silver-haired man in a navy blue suit made his way to the front of the auditorium. He kissed a woman on the cheek, mingled briefly, then stuck out his hand and introduced himself.

"I'm Congressman Bill Pascrell," he said.

Each of the candidates was given eight minutes to speak. Payne, who is running un-opposed in the upcoming election in November, led off and set the tone of the forum by bringing up the overriding issue that was on the minds of every elderly resident present - health care.

"I think the most important thing we can do right now, because we have such a great economy, is that we ought to shore our Social Security and Medicare," Payne said. "These HMOs are for the birds."

Likening HMOs to "rationed care... when your ration runs out, you're finished," Payne called for a "real prescription drug benefit" that could be provided through Medicare. His comments drew applause during three separate intervals of his eight-minute speech.

Fortunato's views on health-care reform drew multiple rounds of applause as well. Echoing the Green Party's platform to "rehash our health care in a nonprofit mode," Fortunato emphasized that "health care is a right for all of us," which drew loud applause from the elderly residents in attendance.

Then he compared health care in the United States to the universal health-care system in Canada. Fortunato said that while "28 percent" of health-care funds are used toward administration costs in the United States, Canada uses "11 percent" to fund administration costs.

"I've had one report that many seniors are going across the border, into Canada, where they can save 63 percent on their prescription drugs," Fortunato said. "This is an outrage. We call for universal health care from the cradle to the nursing home, and a single-payer system like we have in Canada."

Pascrell followed Fortunato to the podium. And after presenting his AARP membership card for all to see and pointing out that he is "a card-carrying member of the AARP," the incumbent congressman who is seeking a second consecutive term admitted that the United States "simply cannot afford" universal health care for everyone. Not "tomorrow," anyway.

"So how dare anyone entice us into thinking that the government can take care of this and spend themselves out of existence again," Pascrell said, adding that he supports President Bill Clinton's proposal to use budget surplus funds and extend prescription drug benefits through Medicare.

"It doesn't break the bank," Pascrell said of the president's proposal. "If we do not have tax cuts and exceed $1.4 trillion, we can pay for this and we can extend the program through Medicare.

"No one says that Medicare should not be reformed," the congressman added. "It's estimated that there's $25 billion in fraud. We can't accept this. But we can't say that we can throw money at the problem."

Independent Party candidate Viji Sargis marked her portion of the forum by saying that the day was Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. Sargis, a professor at Montclair State University, Rutgers University and William Paterson University, called for "equal pay for equal work" and nonviolent solutions to the world's problems. Closer to home, Sargis touched on health care, but spent much of her eight minutes telling the audience about her family.

"Health is the most important thing," Sargis said. "I want my children and their children to have the pleasure of knowing my parents and my parents-in-law. They are wonderful people. And grandparents are important in children's lives."

Sargis also drew laughter when she pointed out the discrepancy between the standard three-year membership to the AARP, and Pascrell's admission after presenting his AARP card that his membership was through 2006.

"I found it interesting that the congressman's AARP membership was for 2006, when the AARP chairman said that membership was only for three years. So it must be special for Congress people," she said.

Republican Party candidate Anthony Fusco seemed to strike a nerve among the elderly audience with his personal "horror story" about the Fusco family HMO plan. Fusco's father, Anthony Sr., who he said died from cancer, suffered a heart attack prior to his death.

"My father didn't live to see me have the honor of running [for Congress]," Fusco said. "Whether I win or not, he wasn't around because of the abuse of the HMO.

"He had a heart attack," Fusco added of his father, who lived in Hanover. "He was in a hospital in Morristown. Do you know that they kicked him out of the hospital. The doctor says, 'You gotta go. They won't pay for you anymore.' He came back, and he lasted one day in my mother's house. And he had another heart attack. But for the great services provided in Hanover, he would have died on the spot. Died right on the spot.

"Sue HMOs?" Fusco asked loudly. "You're darned right. We have the right to sue the damned bureaucrats who are spending your money and don't know what to do with it."

After Fusco finished up the speaker's portion, the forum was turned over to the audience for questions.

One audience member asked when Congress was going to get around to "lowering the cost of assisted living. I think that's the way most of us would like to go," she said.

Another disagreed with Pascrell's claim that the United States government can't afford to pay for universal health care "tomorrow morning."

"We couldn't afford Social Security in 1933, but somehow we did," the man said.

Greg Pason, the Saddle Brook-based Socialist Party candidate for U.S. senator, wondered aloud if the presidential debate and other such forums were open to include all political parties, candidates and views. Pason is running on the platform of free education, military budget cuts, the abolition of the death penalty and "guaranteed universal health care."

Fusco agreed that the presidential and other debates should be open to a multitude of parties, not just the Republicans and the Democrats, and he reiterated, "I'm willing to openly debate anybody at any time."

But the question of the day, from former Montclair resident Thelma S. Brown, was more of a rhetorical sign of the times than a question.

"I have a prescription drug that costs me $103 for 30 [tablets]," she said. "I have a friend that's a retired federal employee. He gets the same drugs, not only tablets, for $20. Now tell me if I'm missing something."

Fusco answered Brown, who not only admitted to being 87 years old, but said that she had been born in Montclair and raised in the same neighborhood "with the Fusco family," and now lives in East Orange. Fusco admitted that it wasn't Brown who was missing out, but the government.

"These are the types of things that for eight years should have been addressed," Fusco said. "You should not pay more when some other American is paying the same price."

Brown wouldn't specify whether or not she was satisfied with the candidates' views or their answers.

"I just wanted to come here and put my question to them," she said.

"Besides," Brown added, "I'm old enough to ask them anything I need to."