(light, airy music)
- That's it.
(crowd cheering and clapping)
- The night that the ACA passed
meant more to me than the night I was elected
because you run a political campaign,
you run for office, you go through all of that
not just to get in office,
not just to have a title.
You do it to get something done,
to actually deliver for the people that sent you there.
The thing that kept me going through all the ups and downs
was the conversations I had had
with people on the campaign trail.
Folks who thought they might have to choose
between paying their healthcare bill
or paying their mortgage, or putting off retirement
because they had gotten sick
or a family member had gotten sick.
That made you determined to go ahead
and get this thing done.
- When I would talk to the president,
it was usually about how different aspects
of the policy that we were working on
to try to get all Americans covered,
how the pieces would work, but he always brought it back
to people that he had met, and often by name.
He was trying to make sure that the law would help them.
He continued to read letters, of course, everyday,
and a number of them were about healthcare.
It's those letters, it's those people,
who gave him the determination
to keep going and to get this done.
- Natoma Canfield is a great example
of the kind of ordinary person
who decided one day, I'm gonna be heard.
And she happened to write me a letter.
Here she was, a self-employed woman
who had done everything right.
She was a cancer survivor,
and had always paid her premiums,
but because she had a pre-existing condition
her rates just kept on skyrocketing
to the point where she couldn't afford them anymore.
She lived in constant terror that if, in fact,
that cancer recurred, she would lose everything.
- I've never written to a president before.
I just wanted somebody somewhere
to know how hard I'd struggled.
You know, I didn't think it would ever get read, really,
but just putting it down in writing
and sending it off made me feel better.
- He invited a number of executives
of health insurance companies into the White House.
He wanted to impress upon them
why it was so urgent that we get this done.
So he got the letter out and he read it to them.
- We ended up reaching out to Natoma.
We had a rally.
She actually probably helped persuade a member of Congress
where she lived to vote in favor of the bill.
- Thank you Mister Speaker.
Her story took me to a place I haven't been in a long time.
I'm talking about Natoma Canfield, the face of this debate.
- That ended up being one of those moments
where I said, "This is why we're here."
She was an inspiration, not just for me,
but for a lot of people, and that's a great example
of how citizens who decide to get involved
can have an extraordinary impact on history.
I think Natoma did.
The thing I want every visitor
to the Obama Presidential Center
to understand about healthcare
is this wasn't just something that I did.
This is something that we did.
It was a collective effort, and a grassroots movement,
and hopefully it inspires visitors to understand
that their participation
can bring about big change, as well.
(upbeat music)