U med student invited to hear Obama speak

When President Barack Obama discusses health care Wednesday in a joint session of Congress , Peter Olsen will be there listening closely for a plan to support primary care.
Olsen, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Minnesota, will attend the session with Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The senator met Olsen when she spoke at a roundtable event at the Medical School in August , addressing the need for more primary care physicians.
Olsen said Klobuchar expressed strong feelings that primary care should “play a larger role in health care reform” while it is being debated in Congress. Olsen agreed, adding that he hopes “to hear [Obama] lay out solid plans for making primary care more of the foundation of American health care.”
Olsen said he is grateful to the senator for the opportunity to see the president speak. He sees himself as a representative of the University and other medical students.
“As a medical student,” Olsen said, “it is an incredibly rare opportunity to see how legislation at the federal level will affect me in my future career.”
The health care issue dominated political debate this summer. Obama is expected to clarify his stance on controversial issues such as a government-run alternative to private insurance in his speech Wednesday evening.