At a campaign stop for her husband at the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis on Monday, First Lady Michelle Obama was introduced by a physician who praised President Obama’s most contentious policy achievement, the Affordable Health Care Act.
Mrs. Obama was introduced by Dr. Naga Yalla, a physician who talked movingly about her family’s own medical issues that she said has helped make her strong supporter of President Obama and his health care reform.
Four years ago, Yalla and her husband, also a physician, gave birth to a son who suffered a fractured skull and brain damage during delivery. As a result, he has required ongoing medical care and continues to suffer from seizures.
Their son’s first few weeks in intensive care cost $150,000, Nalla said. But there also are longstanding challenges beyond the obvious medical ones.
“Would he be able to get health insurance? Or would this pre-existing condition preclude him from coverage?” she said. “Would he exceed some arbitrary lifetime limit on spending that our insurer had imposed him?”
Dr. Nalla said that President Barack Obama’s leadership in pushing through health insurance changes was critical for her son’s future – and other children like him. “He made sure Janak could get health insurance and not be unfairly discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition that wasn’t his fault,” Nalla said.
The audience cheered enthusiastically as Nalla introduced Mrs. Obama, who first offered her condolences for the victims of the latest storms and tornadoes that struck southern Missouri and several neighboring states
She then spent about a half-hour laying out what she viewed as her husband’s achievements and the voters’ “choices that will affect our lives for decades to come.”
During her travels, Mrs. Obama said she often hears about the “challenges and struggles” facing many Americans that were exacerbated when the economic downturn hit in 2008, before the president took office.
“I hear how they are taking that extra shift, working that extra job,’” she said. “People’s paychecks just have not kept up… So when this economic crisis hit, for far too many families the bottom just completely fell out.”
The crowd cheered as she emphasized how “your president has worked very hard to dig us out of this mess” and cited “23 straight months of private sector job growth.”
“Barack had the backs of American workers,” she said, citing the resurrection of the nation’s auto industry.
She also pointed to the administration’s work to help veterans, young people “drowning in debt” from college, and Americans “tricked into loans they couldn’t afford, and probably didn’t understand.”
Now, she said, supporters need to help the president win re-election. Barack Obama, she said, “can’t do it alone.”
The campaign “never has been about one extraordinary man, although I will admit my husband is awesome,” Mrs. Obama said.
Throughout, she sprinkled her campaign pitch with bits of humor aimed at humanizing the president and his family.
“When it comes to the people he meets, Barack has a memory like a steel trap,” Mrs. Obama said, touching off chuckles when she added, “Kind of gets on your nerves a bit. But it’s a good thing. He will never forget your story. It will be imprinted on his heart.”
Edited from copy submitted as press pool reports.
