Obama in Iowa City in 2010 (Charles Dharapak/AP)
The road to health care reform?what the Republican presidential candidates routinely call "Obamacare," and likely the central issue of the fall 2012 campaign?began in Iowa.In May 2007, Barack Obama was a United States senator and Democratic presidential candidate who was losing to Hillary Clinton by double digits in national polls, when he unveiled the first blueprint of what became the most comprehensive overhaul of the nation's health insurance laws in history.
Speaking to a mostly friendly audience at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Obama spoke of the plight of average Americans who tried to keep up with the rising costs of medical care.
And when Obama signed his health care bill into law in March 2010, he celebrated by returning to Iowa City, where he touted the state's influence in helping to pass the legislation. "Because of you," Obama told the cheering crowd, "this is the place where change began."
Nearly two years later, Iowans' reaction to that change is mixed, as the state isn't the friendly territory it used to be for Obama?especially on health care.
Darlyne Neff, a 77-year-old breast cancer survivor whose efforts to pass the law landed her a White House invitation and a mention in Obama's 2010 speech in Iowa City, told Yahoo News that she still supports the law's overall goals. But she thinks the bill is "too expensive" and needs to be tweaked.
"We've got to do more to cut costs," Neff said. "We're trying to cover everything now, and everything into the future, and we simply aren't going to be able to afford that . . . . Everybody needs to be covered, but there has to be limits . . . . ?We can't pay for everything."
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