Michelle Obama Speaks Out on Health Care Reform

First Lady Michelle Obama added her voice to the health care reform debate Monday, telling a rural Virginia audience that the lack of coverage, prevention and primary care is costing all Americans.

When some people get sick, she said, "their only option is to wait until it gets so bad that they have to visit the emergency room. They end up lurching from illness to illness and crisis to crisis, getting emergency care instead of health care." Ultimately, she said, "we wind up spending billions of dollars each year to treat diseases that, for far less money, we could prevent in the first place."

The first lady was in Bowling Green, Va., to cut the ribbon on the Caroline Family Practice, a community health center that opened last week in a former grocery store. The center is staffed by a full-time nurse and a part-time family doctor and operates in a building renovated with a $1.3-million grant from the $787-billion stimulus package.

This marked the first lady's third visit to a health care center this year. Her husband has pitched health care reform as a signature issue in his presidency, and is holding a town hall meeting with AARP Tuesday and will hold another health care event in Bristol, Va., on Wednesday. The first lady's comments tracked those of President Obama and many congressional Democrats, who have made increased prevention and primary care key elements in their health care reform bills.

As your regular FLOTUS scribe, Lynn Sweet, has written before, first ladies have frequently waded into policy matters, with three going so far as to testify before Congress on issues of importance to them. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke out on welfare in 1940; Rosalynn Carter testified on mental health issues in 1979; and, of course, Hillary Clinton took her doomed health care reform effort before the Ways and Means Committee in 1993.

But don't look for Mrs. O before a congressional panel any time soon. Although she has made healthy eating, wellness and combating childhood obesity cornerstones of her policy work, her office told Politics Daily that testifying to Congress is not in her plans.

And don't look for The Capitolist to be moonlighting in the FLOTUS column too much, either. Lynn will be back Wednesday, with more scoops for PD readers from the inner sanctum of the East Wing.