President Obama on Wednesday fought for his health care agenda and electronic medical records during an online town hall that was streamed from Annandale, Va. But those in the room may have had the biggest impact on the conversation.
In a departure from past Q&A sessions with netizens, the president took questions through the broadcast text-messaging service Twitter. Alternatively, citizens could submit comments through WhiteHouse.gov or upload videos through the commercial, free Web site YouTube.
However, it was a live audience member in Virginia who posed perhaps the most compelling question. A teary-eyed woman suffering from a recurrence of renal cancer - and living on food stamps - politely asked Obama, "How am I going to make it nine years until I'm on social security [when, today] I have a new tumor?"
Obama, in that immovable calm, said, "Come over here. . . . I don't want you to feel like you're alone here." He hugs the woman. "We're going to try to help you out . . . [and] find out what we can do within existing law."
Viewers watched on WhiteHouse.gov, and, for the first time, the White House allowed Facebook also to air the live broadcast.
Throughout much of the roughly hour-long meeting, Obama focused on aspects of his plan that would add coverage without adding to the nation's deficits.
"This is going to be a marketplace that would allow you to one-stop shop for health insurance," Obama said. "None of these plans would be allowed to deny you coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition."
"I know the biggest question on everyone's mind is - 'How do we pay for this?'. . . This can't add to our deficits. It's got to be deficit neutral for the next 10 years. . . . [This] doesn't involve more spending. It just involves smarting spending," he added.
Elsewhere on the Internet, bloggers were rallying support for their own specific questions - and their own agendas.
The Foundry, a blog maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation, noted, "Judging by Obama's previous track record of skirting the hard follow-up questions, it remains to be seen how much open debate or tough questioning the president will face on his health agenda and its potential impact on Americans. That's why you also should sound off on www.FixHealthCarePolicy.com to make sure your questions and thoughts about truly reforming the health care system are heard and seen by the general public."
That site, also run by Heritage, urges Americans to upload videos that describe how they would improve the health care system.
A patient advocacy blog, called- e-Patients.net, reasoned, "If enough of us ask, maybe we will get a verbal commitment from Obama to support our health data rights.
Here are a couple of twitter examples:
Obama, will #hcreform support my right to access and use #myhealthdata ? #WHHCQ
Hi Prez Obama! Will #hcreform support humans' access to their own health data, kinda like how they access their pet's data? #WHHCQ"
COMMENTS
To Doug Dash - Your comment misses the point. Was the woman, in fact, suffering from recurring renal cancer and, was she on food stamps and couldn't afford treatment? If true, It doesn't matter where she got her ticket.
To Bob Moore - I don't believe that providing treatment for cancer for anyone could, in any way, be contrued as entitling them to "everything under the sun". That just follows as common human decency.
Remember - Many people, unless they are independantly wealthy, are in the exact same situation. Imagine if you didn't have insurance. Could you afford a complete round of cancer treatment out of your own pocket?
Dana Taylor 07/06/09 04:16 pm ET
I thought the President's comments were the best I have ever heard on the health care issue. Each question touched a major point of the arguement from all sides and the President explained them thoroughly and simply. I was sceptical of his intentions before (that is, not doing enough to get health care reform passed) but no longer. I think he is sincere in wanting reform passed and I don't think how anyone could not be for reform after seeing this town hall session.
Stephanie Swiger 07/02/09 10:50 am ET
The "teary eyed" woman turns out to be a former DNC campaign worker that received her ticket to the town hall meeting from the White House. This incident was pre-arranged and staged in order to enforce Obama's socialist campaign to put our health care system under the Federal government. Have they no shame at all?
Doug Dash 07/02/09 10:43 am ET
When will the people learn that they are not entitled to everything under the sun and that bigger government and greater expenditures by the government is NOT the solution to all their problems? Unfortunately, in my opinion, the answer is never.
Bob Moore 07/02/09 10:05 am ET