Michelle Obama Watch

In a speech this morning First Lady Obama, a former hospital administrator, lent her voice to the call for health care reform in America. Speaking to leaders of different women’s groups, at an event sponsored by the White Council on Women and Girls, she encouraged women to get involved in the health care debate as part  of “the next step” in their long quest to assure full opportunity and equality.

“Women aren’t just disproportionately affected by this issue because of the roles that we play in families…We all know that women are more likely to work part-time, or to work in small companies or businesses that don’t provide any insurance at all.

Women are affected because, as we heard, in many states, insurance companies can still discriminate because of gender. And this is still shocking to me. These are the kind of facts that still wake me up at night; that women in this country have been denied coverage because of preexisting conditions like having a C-section or having had a baby. In some states, it is still legal to deny a woman coverage because she’s been the victim of domestic violence.”

According to CNN.com, Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn stated:

“What she’s doing is putting a personal and human face on the issue … there’s nothing more crucial. Everybody gets sick, and everybody has someone in the family that gets sick … I think if you can humanize it and personalize it, it suddenly brings it home to people — especially those who are screaming and yelling about the government taking over.”

And put a human face on the issue she did. The First Lady recalled personal experiences of growning up with a father who had multiple sclerosis and the terrifying feeling she had as a parent when her child’s health was threatened by a potentially deadly disease.

“I will never forget the time eight years ago when Sasha was four months that she would not stop crying. And she was not a crier, so we knew something was wrong. So we fortunately were able to take her to our pediatrician that next morning. He examined her and same something’s wrong. We didn’t know what. But he told us that she could have meningitis. So we were terrified. He said, get to the emergency room right away.

And fortunately for us, things worked out, because she is now the Sasha that we all know and love today — (laughter) — who is causing me great — excitement. (Laughter.)

But it is that moment in our lives that flashes through my head every time we engage in this health insurance conversation. It’s that moment in my life. Because I think about what on earth would we have done if we had not had insurance. What would have happened to that beautiful little girl if we hadn’t been able to get to a pediatrician who was able to get us to an emergency room? The consequences I can’t even imagine. She could have lost her hearing. She could have lost her life if we had had to wait because of insurance.”

“And this issue isn’t something that I’ve thought about as a mother. I think about it as a daughter. As many of you know, my father had multiple sclerosis. He contracted it in his twenties. And as you all know, my father was a rock. He was able to get up and go to work every day, even though it got harder for him as he got sicker and more debilitated. And I find myself thinking, what would we have done as a family on the South Side of Chicago if my father hadn’t had insurance, if he hadn’t been able to cover his treatments? What would it have done to him to think that his illness could have put his entire family into bankruptcy? And what if he had lost his job, which fortunately he never did? What if his company had changed insurance, which fortunately never happened, and we became one of the millions of Americans, families, who can’t get insurance because of a preexisting condition?”

 To read the First Lady’s remarks in their entirety click here.

It sounds like the First Lady is fired up and ready to go take the message of health care reform to the people who really make the decisions – the women of America. But are we listening?

Posted by Aminah Hanan