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Obama vows 'commonsense' overhaul of health care

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - Continuing his campaign for an overhaul of the nation's health-care system, President Obama promised a western Colorado audience yesterday that his effort would create a "commonsense set of consumer protections" for Americans with health insurance.

President Obama takes his campaign for a health-care overhaul to Grand Junction, Colo. He said ordinary Americans were being "held hostage by health-insurance companies."
President Obama takes his campaign for a health-care overhaul to Grand Junction, Colo. He said ordinary Americans were being "held hostage by health-insurance companies."Read moreED ANDRIESKI / Associated Press

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. - Continuing his campaign for an overhaul of the nation's health-care system, President Obama promised a western Colorado audience yesterday that his effort would create a "commonsense set of consumer protections" for Americans with health insurance.

Obama also passionately challenged the notion that Democratic efforts to overhaul the nation's health care would include "death panels."

In an effort to soothe concerns in the midst of the nation's contentious health-care debate, Obama pledged that new health legislation would ease the burdens of average consumers by capping the amount insurance companies can charge annually for out-of-pocket costs such as co-payments and deductibles.

Singling out families being "pushed to the brink" by medical expenses, Obama said ordinary Americans were being "held hostage by health-insurance companies that deny them coverage, or drop their coverage, or charge fees that they can't afford for care they desperately need."

He invoked his own anguish over his grandmother's death while answering a question about misinformation being spread about Democratic health care efforts during the town-hall-style gathering in a high school gymnasium.

"I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it's like to watch somebody you love, who's aging, deteriorate and have to struggle with that," an impassioned Obama said as he spoke of Madelyn Payne Dunham. He took issue with "the notion that somehow I ran for public office or members of Congress are in this so they can go around pulling the plug on grandma."

"When you start making arguments like that, that's simply dishonest," Obama said.

Obama spoke with a rare bit of emotion that seemed to counter vocal opponents of his proposal as he mentioned the beloved grandmother who helped raise him and who he called "Toot." She died of cancer Nov. 2 at age 86.

Obama's remarks to approximately 1,600 people here came on the second day of a swing through the Western states.

Arriving in Grand Junction in the late afternoon, he waded headlong into the complex debate over the five bills under discussion in Congress. His choice of Grand Junction for the last of three health-care events in the last week was a step into less-friendly territory. Although Obama carried Colorado in the 2008 presidential election, GOP presidential nominee John McCain handily beat him here in Mesa County.

In interviews before the president arrived at the Central High School gymnasium, several Grand Junction residents said they had come armed with questions. Jeb Brost, 31, an addictions counselor, said he was troubled by the president's support for a government-sponsored health-care plan that would be one of a number of options available in a new, regulated insurance marketplace.

"I think it's going to really dissolve private health care," said Brost, a Republican.

"Nobody likes it," said Taffy Homyak, 46, of Obama's plan for the overhaul. "A lot of people feel like they're being double-talked."

Alluding to some of the charged exchanges at congressional town-hall-style meetings in his weekly radio address, Obama acknowledged that some voters find the proposed changes unsettling, but asked his listeners to "lower our voices, listen to one another, and talk about differences that really exist."

"While there may be disagreements over how to go about it, there is widespread agreement on the urgent need to reform a broken system and finally hold insurance companies accountable," he said.

Scott Adler, a political science professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said Obama's visit to the state served another purpose - providing political cover for vulnerable Colorado Democrats in Congress.

"There are several lawmakers from Colorado who are from congressional districts where they are in dangerous positions - they are basically Democrats in traditionally Republican areas," Adler said.