WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday held up a 6-year-old hemophiliac from Englewood as an example of the early benefits of health care reform and warned insurance executives not to use the legislation as an excuse to raise rates.
Thomas Wilkes, who was born with hemophilia in 2003, has become a White House symbol of sorts. This is the third time he’s met Obama, with the president each time using the story of the Wilkes family to illustrate the necessity of key insurance reforms in the bill, including elimination of lifetime benefit caps.
“It’s one of those weird things that happens. There have been some strange things that have happened for the worse and for the better,” said Thomas’ father, Nathan, who was also at his son’s side at a presidential town hall in Grand Junction last summer and a speech the president gave to joint session of Congress in September.
“This is definitely one of the better ones,” Nathan Wilkes said.
The cost of Thomas’ care bumped up against the $1 million cap on an initial insurance policy and is close to the halfway mark on the $6 million cap on a second.
While many of the reforms at the core of the Affordable Care Act won’t kick in until 2014, some start almost immediately and Democrats used the 90-day anniversary of the legislation to highlight them.
They include tax breaks for small businesses to cover their employees, as well as a ban on discriminating against children with pre-existing conditions. Young adults up to 26 also will now be eligible for coverage under their parents’ policies.
Speaking in front of an audience that included the CEOs of some of the largest health insurers in the country — as well as insurance commissioners from several states — Obama warned the industry not to use the legislation as a pretext for raising premiums, noting that states now have new powers to investigate and review rate hikes.
“We’ve got to make sure that this new law is not being used as an excuse to simply drive up costs,” Obama said, daring opponents to fight for the law’s repeal.
“We’re not going back. I refuse to go back,” he said. “And so do countless Americans who bravely shared their stories with me over two years as I traveled this country, and who wrote letter after letter to me in the White House. A lot of them are here today.”
As the president moved on to the story of Thomas Wilkes, who was sitting in the front row of the East Room audience, Thomas’ father kept a keen eye on the 6-year-old.
“He was grinning from ear to ear,” Nathan Wilkes said.
