During his speech after the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, President Obama spoke about Natoma Canfield, a cancer survivor who wrote to him in 2010 and whose letter he framed and has hanging on the wall of the Oval Office.
There’s a framed letter that hangs in my office right now. It was sent to me during the health care debate by a woman named Natoma Canfield. For years and years, Natoma did everything right. She bought health insurance. She paid her premiums on time. But 18 years ago, Natoma was diagnosed with cancer. And even though she’d been cancer-free for more than a decade, her insurance company kept jacking up her rates, year after year. And despite her desire to keep her coverage -- despite her fears that she would get sick again -- she had to surrender her health insurance, and was forced to hang her fortunes on chance.
I carried Natoma’s story with me every day of the fight to pass this law. It reminded me of all the Americans, all across the country, who have had to worry not only about getting sick, but about the cost of getting well.
Natoma is well today. And because of this law, there are other Americans -- other sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers -- who will not have to hang their fortunes on chance. These are the Americans for whom we passed this law.
Barack Obama received this letter from an ordinary American citizen and was so moved by it that he had it framed and hung it on his office wall, where he could be reminded of it every day. No doubt his experience with his cancer-stricken mother, fighting with insurance companies while laying in her hospital bed, was in his memory and inspired him to do this.
“For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend
the last months of her life in a hospital room arguing with insurance
companies because they’re saying that this may be a preexisting
condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something
fundamentally wrong about that.
Ms. Canfield received a note in
response from the President, but never spoke or met with the President. She was surprised to see her name appear as she
watched the speech on a muted TV in a restaurant.
The President's personal life experiences have shaped his priorities and have helped determine how he governs. At every turn we have seen him to be a compassionate human being.
What personal life experiences would a President Mitt Romney bring to serving as President of 300 million Americans? What difficulties and hardships has he faced that would affect how he would govern? Ann Romney's battle with multiple sclerosis? How did he deal with that? By opening his checkbook and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on his wife's therapy. Just as most of us cannot relate to that, Mitt Romney cannot relate to most of us.
Whose letter would he frame and hang on the wall of his Oval Office? Whose letter would he use for inspiration in finding ways to help improve the lives of ordinary Americans? Maybe Jan Ebeling's, whose life and fortunes have vastly improved since becoming acquainted with the Romneys? Not Catherine Norris's, whose life significantly deteriorated after her encounter with them. Or the employees of GS Technologies, or the employees of KB Toys. Or the AMPAD Corporation. Not John Lauber, or the young women he pulled over as a pretend cop, or the people in the house in France he invaded and scared to death, or the blind teacher.
Mitt Romney has lived a life of privilege, free of hardship. He has shown himself to be hopelessly out of touch, devoid of compassion, with no inclination to help the American populace because he doesn't know what it means to need help. He would be a very good president for a very small circle of people. This must become crystal clear to America by November 6th.