Two More Ohio Democrats Now Backing Health Care

Maybe President Barack Obama should take his campaign for health reform to Ohio more often. Four days after his latest visit to the state, two more Ohio Democrats announced Friday that they would support the health care bill nearing a critical vote in the U.S. House on Sunday.

Reps. John Boccieri and Charles Wilson joined Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in leaving the ranks of the undecideds and saying they would vote for the $940 billion bill, which is expected to provide coverage to some 32 million uninsured Americans. Kucinich, who was lobbied by the president in Strongsville, Ohio, on Monday, came aboard two days ago, as Democratic leaders counted heads for what is likely to be a tight roll-call vote.

Boccieri said he was inspired by Obama's account of the plight of Natoma Canfield, a 50-year-old cancer patient who said she had to give up her health insurance because she could no longer afford it. Obama talked about her in his speech in Strongsville, a Cleveland suburb.

Boccieri, who represents a swing district that includes the city of Canton, said he had concluded that voting against the bill "perpetuates the status quo, where insurance company bureaucrats make life-and-death decisions in the name of a profitable bottom line." The freshman lawmaker faces a tough re-election battle in a district that was dominated by Republican Ralph Regula for 36 years.

Wilson said he was swayed by a recent Congressional Budget Office report that said the health bill would trim federal budget deficits by $138 billion over 10 years. An anti-abortion Democrat in hilly southeastern Ohio, Wilson said he was convinced the Senate bill would not permit federal funds to be spent on abortions.

Wilson and Kucinich were recognized by the president in the audience at the Strongsville event on Monday. But Boccieri, who voted against the health care bill when it passed the House the first time in 2009, sklpped Obama's appearance.

"This (Senate bill) not only gives patients choice, it further reduces cost, further protects coverage, and further reduces waste, fraud and abuse," Boccieri said Friday. "The previous bill we voted on did not go far enough to produce these results."

Obama, sensing momentum for the bill, was across the Potomac River in Fairfax, Va., on Friday speaking to students at George Mason University. "A few miles from here, Congress is in the final stages of a fateful debate about the future of health insurance in America . . ." he said. "It's a debate that's not only about the cost of health care, not just about what we're doing about folks who aren't getting a fair shake from their insurance companies, it's a debate about the character of this country, about whether we will meet the challenges of our time; whether we still have the guts and the courage to give every citizen, not just some, the chance to reach their dreams."