Race Divisions Not Working to Bolster Support for President's Health Care Plan; First Lady Tries Gender Divisions

Meredith Jessup | September 18, 2009 5:00 PM

President Obama schmoozed with the Latino crowd on Capitol Hill today, claiming the best way to cover America's illegal immigrants is just to legalize them. Meanwhile, First Lady Michelle Obama was pitching her husband's plan before a group of 140 that included a number of family and women's organizations. Her message: the country's current system of health care's treatment of women is "unacceptable."

Bloomberg reports:

Michelle Obama said women are being “crushed by the current structure of our health care” because they often are responsible for taking care of family illnesses, arranging checkups and monitoring follow-up care.
“Women are the ones to do it. [...] Mothers are the ones that do it. And many women find themselves doing the same thing for their spouses.”
Women also are more disproportionately affected by the lack of insurance options because they are more likely to work part-time or at small businesses that don’t provide coverage.
“It’s not surprising that so many millions of women are simply going without insurance at all,” Obama said.

So does this mean that people opposing the plan are now both racist and sexist?