Well, we know that one of them was not Obama himself.
Zohre Abolfazli of Brentwood unexpectedly wound up standing behind President Obama on Monday as he defended the Affordable Care Act while admitting the failures of the government website that have prevented people from signing up for health coverage.
She was visiting her daughter, Leila Abolfazli, and her two grandsons in Washington, D.C., where the daughter works as senior counsel for the National Women’s Law Center, when the family got a call Saturday about an opportunity to participate in the presidential address. Leila Abolfazli told the organizer her mother was a fan of the law and explained why.
Suddenly, the 60-year-old small business owner from Brentwood had an invitation to the White House, but no dress to wear and a flight scheduled home before the big event. She had brought along jeans, tennis shoes and T-shirts — comfortable clothes for playing with her grandsons, ages one and three. Her husband Mo (short for Mohammad) thought she was telling a fib when she called to say she was staying in D.C. a couple of days longer.
She chose to wear red to the White House, but she was not the woman in red who fainted.
“This new law, this Affordable Care Act, it will help lots of people,” she said. “I have family members and friends who really, really need insurance. They are waiting to do some kind of surgery. They can’t because they don’t have insurance. I really wanted to hug him, but I shook hands.”
Abolfazli, who owns Mail Room Services Inc. and has lived in the Nashville area for 35 years, said she has also benefited from the law. Her premium went down last year, she said, and she no longer has to fork out co-pays for mammograms. She plans to shop for a more affordable plan on the insurance exchange, where she said she registered in under 10 minutes. She does not know whether she will qualify for a subsidy toward buying coverage.