Obama challenged on health care in Iowa meeting

The Washington Post: "Back in Iowa, President Obama got an earful Wednesday from voters about two of his key policies: health care, and his desire to roll back Bush-era tax cuts. ... Standing in the back yard of a resident, Obama stood patiently as one woman described, at length, her fears that the U.S. health-care system will soon resemble that of Great Britain. ... The official topic in Iowa was 'challenges currently facing the middle class,' part of a series of similar economy-driven stops" (Kornblut, 9/29).

Politico: "Obama battled misconceptions about government intervention Wednesday, trying to reassure fretting Iowans about the positive aspects of his sweeping health care reforms and his call to end the quickly expiring Bush-era tax cuts for the nation's top earners. ... But in the state that shot him to the front of the pack during the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008, Obama found that anxieties about Big Government and doubts about the economy have overshadowed some of his signature accomplishments. ... Obama explained to a woman that she's not going to be forced to buy a 'government-run health care plan' and there is no federal mandate to cover undocumented workers. 'I understand why people are concerned — this is a very personal thing, and nothing is scarier when you don't have health care and you're sick,' he told the crowd of about 70 people. 'There's nothing in our health reform bill that is going to impact whether your mom can get heart surgery if she needed it,' Obama said. 'We didn't change the core Medicare program'" (Marr, 9/29).

Des Moines Register: "Obama defended the health care bill he signed in March, saying neither it, nor the stimulus package nor the automotive industry bailout last year was responsible for the size of the federal deficit to the extent that tax cuts were" (Beaumont, 9/29).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.