obama and me

I was BEYOND thrilled to be able to attend the President's health care reform rally at the University of Maryland this week. (Right down the street from me!!!)

Despite the fact that I have lived in the DC area my whole life, I have only seen one other President in person, George Bush, Sr. I got invited to stand on the White House lawn and wave to him and Babs as they got off the helicopter and walked into the White House. (Photo op.) I didn't vote for him, but it was still VERY cool - he was the President and all.

So it was even more thrilling for me to be at the Comcast Center on Thursday to listen to a President that I voted for, speaking about a topic near and dear to my heart. (And can I add, my niece was an usher for the event and got to SHAKE! HIS! HAND! Which she promptly washed due to swine flu concerns, before I ever got a chance to shake it.)

Another very cool part of the day was that I ended up sitting next to a woman who is my neighbor, but had never met before, who works at Children's Hospital in genetic research and has a son with muscular dystrophy. She has some very well-informed opinions about health care reform. It was actually just as much of an honor to talk to her about her son and their experiences.

I am a sucker for great rhetoric. President Obama is a wonderful speaker. He is inspiring and motivating, enthusiastic and informal. He had a great connection to the young people in the crowd (which, considering it was held on a college campus, I was NOT one of the young people, {SOB}). When somebody yelled out "Obama! We love you!" he stopped and pointed and said "I love you back." (The crowd went W-I-L-D! You can see it in the video link below.)

But it's not just the appeal of his Presidency and his ability to communicate his message, it IS his message that speaks to me.

(As did the words of the Secretary Gary Locke of the Department of Commerce, who spoke before him. I can't find the text of his remarks on the internet, but he spoke of health care reform as a moral imperative. Sometimes doing the RIGHT THING is not the EASIEST THING or the LEAST EXPENSIVE THING. I agree with that. And I'm not saying I agree with every aspect of the legislative proposals lock, stock and barrel, but there are times in life when we must choose between what is right and what is easy.)

If I can do anything to pass on a better society to my kids, making sure they always have access to affordable and competent health care (particularly with no restrictions on pre-existing conditions) is one of my imperatives. Particularly for Shout who will always have to rely rather heavily on the health care system, but for all my kids. The President called health care reform the "defining struggle of this generation."

Did you know that in 10 years (10 - as in 2019) the cost of health insurance for an average American family (that's 4 people... our family would be 1.5 times more) will be $25,000 per year. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. We are very comfortably middle class, and while SOME of that burden will hopefully be borne by an employer, we can't possibly afford that. That is INSANE. (And that doesn't count out-of-pocket expenses, which are already a struggle for us some months.)

I won't bore you with more of my thoughts on health care, but here are some of the best quotes from the President's speech.

Even if you have coverage, insurance companies today, they can drop it or water it down when you’re sick and you need it the most. Or they can decide that they won’t pay the full cost of your care and make you pay the rest of it out of pocket, even if it’s thousands upon thousands of dollars. That’s why more than one-third of all young adults -- including those with insurance – have had trouble paying their medical bills. That's why one-fourth of all young adults are paying off medical debt

...in this country, we don't fear the future; we shape the future.

It has now been nearly a century since Teddy Roosevelt first called for health care reform. It's been attempted by nearly every President and every Congress since. And our failure to get it done -- year after year, and decade after decade -- has placed a burden on families and on businesses and on taxpayers that we can no longer sustain. So I may not be the first President to take up the cause of health care reform; I am determined to be the last, with your help.

(I have to add here that I admire his courage on tackling such a controversial and enormous task so early in his Presidency. Failure is not an option because it would become the hallmark of his adminstration. If I were President, I'd totally wait until I had a few good years under my belt. Which is totally why no one would ever vote for me.)

That’s why I need your help. When I was running for President, I never said change would be easy. Change is hard. It's always been hard. Civil rights was hard. Getting women the right to vote, that was hard. Making sure that Social Security was there for our seniors, that was hard. Getting Medicare in place, that was hard. I know there are doubts that creep into people’s minds. I know there’s a tendency during tough times for folks to turn on each other and get mad and get angry. But our history tells us that each and every time we faced a choice between the easy road that leads to slow decline or the hard road that leads to something better, something higher, we take the higher road.

Goosebumps, people.


The Washington Post has some video of the speech here.

NPR has some audio as well. You can hear how thrilling and electrifying it was. Click the play button below. (Toggle over to 2:51 if you don't have time to listen to the whole thing. Electric.)



(Photo by Lawrence Jackson from the Washington Post)

Copyright Laundry for Six, 2009. All rights reserved.