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Thursday, March 18, 2010

Ingrid Martin, of Brunswick, Ohio, called out the president at his own pep rally.

Forget “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” All Mrs. Martin had to do was stay in her seat, and she landed another blow against Obamacare.

Mrs. Martin, aka Ingrid, is an unemployed health care professional from Ohio. A friend took her along to see President Barack Obama’s “Health Care Hallelujah” speech in Strongsville Monday, where she wound up in the front row, listening in disbelief.

“I crossed my hand and bit my lips a couple of time, and when he made his Medicare claim I said ‘no, no, no,’ ” she told me yesterday.

While she kept her reactions more in line with Justice Sam Alito’s, the president must have noticed. As he shook hands after the speech, he asked her, “Are you OK?”

“ ‘Yes, sir, I’m fine,’ I told him. ‘I just don’t support your bill,’ ” she said. “And at that point, security and everyone stopped.”

And so it came to pass that, for two minutes, Obama and an informed citizen who doesn’t support his plan shared some straight talk. Well, Martin talked straight, anyway.

“He asked me what I would do, and I said the problem is that he’s doing insurance reform, but the problem is really the cost of medical care itself. I said we should fix things that are driving costs up, like defensive medicine and the need for tort reform,” she said. “He told me the bill handled all that, and I said ‘Well, I don’t believe it.’ ”

Ingrid Martin, of Brunswick, Ohio, called out the president of the United States. And at his own pep rally, to boot. “Oh my gosh, I’m calling the president a liar,” she said afterward.

The conversation went along politely and the president promised to send Martin some information to answer her questions. What didn’t happen is the president explaining how cutting $500 billion out of Medicare while adding more people to the rolls is going to “make its finances more secure.”

Obama didn’t answer the question because he can’t. (Continues here)

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