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On the rare day when President Barack Obama had no public events scheduled, first lady Michelle Obama had the stage to herself on the health care front, pitching insurance reform as a women’s issue in her strongest statements on the contentious debate so far.

Straying frequently from her prepared remarks to speak off the cuff, Obama said that in the health insurance debate, women and families are “the face of the fight.”

Using personal stories from her own life — her daughter Sasha’s meningitis scare, her father’s struggle with multiple sclerosis — Obama said that women are “disproportionately affected by this issue because of the roles we play in our families.”

“Women are affected because of the jobs we do in this economy … Women are more likely to work part-time, or work in small businesses, jobs that don’t always provide health insurance,” she said. “Women are affected because in many states, insurance companies can still discriminate because of gender.”

Obama, a former hospital administrator, said her husband’s plan would help “achieve true equality for women.”

The first lady echoed many of the points the president has made, calling his approach “a pretty reasonable plan,” that would result in “good medicine and good economics.”

[SOURCE: Politico]

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