Compared to the screaming and fit throwing witnessed at some of the national town hall meetings on health care, Sen. Roger Wicker’s crowd Tuesday in Natchez was sedate, if not a bit lethargic.

And that’s probably a good thing because understanding and communication generally stop when the yelling and fuming start. The Natchez crowd mostly seemed against massive government intervention into sweeping health care reforms.

That was no surprise. Most Mississippians tend to be moderate, fairly levelheaded folks.

And applying moderate, level-headed thinking to the health care reform bills currently under consideration will leave most intelligent people baffled as to how Congress ever gets anything accomplished.

Our nation would be wise to slow down and consider all the consequences involved with changing our current health care system — both the intended and the unintended consequences.

The argument that we urgently must do something now is a dangerous one. Abrupt changes to a system as massive and as important as health care could be catastrophic. Intelligent changes to the health care industry could improve the quality of care, increase the number of Americans covered and reduce the costs; however, we must move cautiously and with surety of purpose.

Wicker said he supported allowing a few states to test out new and innovative ways to reform health care to test out the plans on a smaller scale before rolling them out nationwide. He even suggested Mississippi might be a great place to start.

We think that’s a smart plan and we hope Wicker — and others — are able to add some good old, Mississippi logic into the current illogical, ill-conceived bills flying around in Washington at the moment.