Farrell: Bluffton mom mentioned in Obama's weekly address
Heather Bragg has written a lot of letters over the years.
When she was young, she wrote to her grandmother ... who lived down the street.
When she was in middle school, she wrote to Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar to ask him for a contribution to an environmental collage she was making.
(He responded with a box of files containing copies of laws he helped pass, which she held onto for years despite her confusion. "I remember being like 'What a weirdo,'" Bragg laughs loudly. "I was thinking, 'Pictures, dude. It's a collage.'")
When Bragg's father served in Desert Storm, she wrote to let him know of another letter she planned to write.
"Dear Saddam: LEAVE THE UNITED STATES ALONE!"
This past summer, the Bluffton mom of two, who is a friend of mine, wrote to the president of the United States to thank him for the Affordable Care Act.
And he wrote back.
Presumably because he's not used to being thanked for this.
At the time, Bragg kept the news to a small group of friends and family. She didn't want to post it on Facebook because she knew it would become politically heated, and the vitriol would likely rob her of the joy she felt in getting a response from a sitting American president.
She can't keep her pen pal secret anymore, though.
Because he told the world.
In his weekly Saturday address, President Barack Obama mentioned Heather Bragg of Bluffton.
"We've begun filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we change jobs, lose a job, go back to school, or start that new business, we can still get coverage," Obama said. "If you want to know how important that is, just ask an American like Heather Bragg."
He then told her story.
"I keep replaying the video over and over," Heather told me Sunday night, laughing at herself and at the surrealness of it all. "'Heather Bragg.' (Rewind) 'Heather Bragg.'"
I was mostly surprised the "So and So of Such and Such" stories that politicians tell are actually about real people.
Who knew?
Heather wrote a thank-you letter to Obama because she and her husband, Mike, both former employees of The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette, were reflecting on how different their family life has been since Mike joined the marketing agency that Heather started years ago.
"I know everyone has their own opinion of ACA and has their own experiences with it," Heather said. "But for us, it has seriously changed our lives. I could cry thinking about it."
And she has. I've seen it.
Because of the ACA -- and an insurance broker who helped them navigate the paperwork -- the couple are able to run a small business together, and Mike has a schedule that better fits the family's needs.
"We were passing ships in the night before," she said. "It's affected everything."
She's also happy with their insurance plan, which is cheaper than what they were paying before.
"For the first time, we're not living paycheck to paycheck," Heather wrote to Obama. "We're able to pay our bills and put some money back into savings."
When the Braggs realized they were going to be mentioned in the president's weekly address, their first reaction was again to keep it mostly to themselves and not post anything on social media.
Heather was raised in a politically conservative family and wasn't sure how the news would go over.
Beyond that, Facebook is a land without law and with no filter.
"My mom and dad have been so supportive, though," she said. "Their opinion of me matters so much. In a weird way, it's brought me kind of closer to my family."
They even encouraged her to edit out the contrite part of her initial Facebook post about the video.
"Don't apologize," they told her.
Heather knows everyone has their own story about ACA, both good and bad.
But she strongly believes in the value of making health insurance accessible to all.
"If there's one thing to come out of this, it's that I want everyone to know they have a voice. If you have a problem with ACA or anything, write your representative. Don't stop until someone listens."
This is advice Heather got from her father back in the day.
"My dad would always say, 'If you don't like it, write your congressman,'" she said. "So yeah, I guess I did write a lot of politicians when I was a kid."
In fact, Obama is not the first president Heather has written.
He's just the first to respond.
"I wrote Bill Clinton to be like, 'Did you know that frogs are getting dissected in your country?!?'"
She doubles over laughing.
"To be honest, it bothered me that Bill Clinton never wrote back."
Follow columnist and senior editor Liz Farrell at twitter.com/elizfarrell and facebook.com/elizfarrell.
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This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Farrell: Bluffton mom mentioned in Obama's weekly address."