Obama tells Ohio crowd why we need health insurance reform now

Updated 4:25 p.m.

“What do we want?”

“Health care.”

“When do we want it?”

“Now!”

The Strongsville, Ohio, crowd warming up for a speech today by President Barack Obama knew what it wanted. Health care.

So did dozens of protesters who lined Royalton Road with colorful, waving signs. Most of them wanted the president of the United States to take his ideas for health insurance reform back to Washington.

That’s what 51 percent of residents in Ohio’s Congressional District 1 in the Cincinnati area told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a poll of 400 registered voters that was conducted on March 9 and 10. While slightly more than half of the voters oppose the current health care reform plan, 35 percent support it, the chamber said in a statement.

There was an edge of urgency to the the Strongsville crowd, unlike the crowd at Shaker Heights High School that had warmly welcomed the president in July when he hosted a health care town hall meeting there. President Obama seemed more urgent, too.

In July, the president was pressing Congress to pass health care reform before its summer break. That didn’t happen. Today, he was back in Ohio as the U.S. House got ready to vote on its version of health care reform by the end of the week.

The president’s Strongsville speech began much the same as it did in Shaker Heights–with raucous cheers and applause.

“I love you,” someone shouted–the same as in July. “I love you back,” Obama said before he was introduced by the sister of a Medina County woman who won the president’s attention in recent weeks.

But this time, hecklers called out, “What’s your plan?” and “We want jobs,” during his speech. That didn’t happen last year.

Obama told the crowd about the plight of Natoma Canfield, the Medina woman who wrote him a letter a few weeks ago. After successfully battling cancer more than a dozen years ago, Canfield let her health insurance lapse because she could no longer afford the premiums.

“January was her last month for being insured,” Obama said. “She was forced to hang her fortunes on chance. She hoped against hope that she would stay healthy. That was the letter that I read to the insurance companies.”

But Canfield didn’t stay healthy. Instead of attending Obama’s speech, she was in a hospital bed. “On Saturday, Natoma was diagnosed with leukemia,” Obama said. “Do you want to know why I’m here in Ohio? I’m here because of Natoma. That’s why we need health insurance.”

A white-haired man fainted and was carried out of the Walter F. Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center.

Obama described his reform plan in many of the same terms as he did in July. “If you like your plan, you can keep your doctor. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” he said.

But the president was more focused on portraying insurers as the problem.

“Here’s what my proposal would change,” Obama said. “It would end the worst practices of the insurance companies. This is like a patient’s bill of rights on steroids.”

The president talked about more specifics than he did in July. “Thousands of Americans who have pre-existing conditions would be able to purchase insurance coverage in the first year,” he said.

Insurers would no longer be able to drop coverage when customers got sick and would have to offer free preventive care, he said.

“Number one is insurance reform,” Obama said. “The second thing is, for the first time, uninsured individuals and small businesses would have the same choices for health care insurance as the members of Congress have.

“It’s the middle class, working people, who are getting squeezed,” he said, “and that’s who we have to help.”

Obama and other Democrats also have worked out how they would pay for reform since July. For instance, insurers would pay a new fee to help expand coverage.

“Here’s the bottom line: Our proposal’s paid for,” Obama said, “which is more than can be said for our colleagues across the aisle when they passed that prescription drug program.”

He said his plan also “would bring down the cost of health care for businesses, families and the federal government.

“We need courage,” Obama said, repeating a shout from a crowd member. “It comes down to what kind of country do we want to be?”