President Barack Obama continued his nationwide health care reform tour today by paying a visit to the University of Maryland. As during then Senator Obama’s campaign, many in attendance arrived at the crack of dawn to hear the President’s speech. Students from the University of Maryland and other universities expressed an overwhelming amount of support for President Obama which was evidenced by the mass wave of supporters who gave a standing ovation before the President had even arrived to make his speech. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley described Obama’s health care reform speech as historic and the students in attendance showed a tremendous amount of support for Obama’s clarification of his position.
President Obama spoke to those in attendance in an effort to clarify how his proposed policies would have an effect on young adults. During his speech, he said, “More than one-third of all young adults have trouble paying their medical debts. In the United States, nobody should go broke because they get sick. The time has finally come to provide affordable, accessible, quality healthcare to every single American.”
Obama touched on familiar themes in this address, including a call for the public option, or a government-run health insurance plan. The public option has been the most contentious point of the health care debate and it would force private insurers to lower costs and be more competitive while Republicans blast it as a government takeover of health care.
The president also pointed to the “unprecedented” coalition of doctors, nurses and hospitals that have backed the Democratic health care overhaul.
“It was good to have a campaign-like rally outside of a campaign,” said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who attended the event. Ulman said Obama struck a chord that had been echoed during the campaign trail — fixing health care won’t be easy, but it must get done.
Let Us Talk 
Leave a Reply