A National Measure, Inextricably Enmeshed With Local Interests
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — Take a glance at the political map, and it makes perfect sense that President Obama will open the most critical week in his push for major health care legislation with a visit on Monday to the Walter F. Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center, in Strongsville, Ohio.
Just a quick 15-minute drive to the northeast, up Pearl Road, lies the Parma district office of Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, one of the 39 House Democrats who voted against the health care legislation in November.
Follow Pearl Road in the opposite direction, south out of Strongsville, and it also takes about 15 minutes to cross into the 16th Congressional District, home to Representative John Boccieri, a freshman, who also voted no in November.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/a-national-measure-inextricably-enmeshed-with-local-interests/...An even bigger factor in traveling to the area, they said, was a letter Mr. Obama received from Natoma A. Canfield, a cleaning woman from Medina, Ohio, about how she could no longer afford health insurance.
Mr. Obama read the letter aloud to insurance executives at a meeting at the White House this month.
In the letter, Ms. Canfield, a cancer survivor, described how she had paid $6,705.24 in premiums in 2009, plus out-of-pocket costs, while her insurance company paid out only $935.32 in benefits. And yet, her premiums were increased by more than 40 percent for 2010, prompting her to drop her policy.
“I simply can no longer afford to pay for my health care costs,” she wrote.
The White House had asked her to introduce Mr. Obama at Monday’s event but she was recently hospitalized with a new diagnosis of leukemia, and the president is now planning to visit her.
Still, White House aides acknowledge that there are needed votes to be found in Ohio as well.
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