Maybe President Barack Obama's research team should have done a little more work. It seems that the Ohio woman he highlighted during a public relations push for health care reform-as someone who would have to choose between keeping her home and caring for her health-may be eligible for Medicaid.

The director of the Cleveland Clinic said that Natoma Canfield's income is low enough to likely qualify her for Medicaid.

"It appears that I think she'll be fine," said Lyman Sornberger, the hospital's executive director of patient financial services, to the Associated Press. "By nature of the fact that she was not early on rejected by either program, that's a key indicator that she will most likely be eligible."

Obama traveled to Ohio Monday to use Canfield's case as an example of why health care reform is so necessary. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs also hyped Canfield's story.

According to the Associated Press:

Obama is not wrong in saying that a patient in Canfield's situation might have to choose between her home and health care, said Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for Cleveland Clinic."But this patient is probably not the best example of someone in that situation, although we have patients in that situation who haven't yet qualified for Medicaid or didn't have the resources" to pay for care," Sheil said.

There are plenty of things about Canfield's story, though, that are worth noting in relation to the battle for health care reform. Just because she isn't the perfect tear jerker story doesn't mean that she doesn't represent the struggles of millions of Americans.For example, Canfield, a self-employed cleaner who reported that she made only about $6,000 last year, dropped her insurance after it allegedly doubled. For people who are self-employed or work for companies that don't provide affordable health insurance, the prospect of attaining it on the open market is incredibly expensive. Would Canfield even be covered given that she has a pre-exisiting condition, such as acute leukemia?

Second, Canfield has already dwindled her savings trying to take care of herself. That is not uncommon. The United States is the only major industrialized country, where its citizens go in to bankruptcy because of medical bills.

Finally, the possibility of her losing her home to medical bills is not out of the question, the Cleveland Clinic admitted.

"There are other hospitals that will do that," Sornberger told the AP. "There's nothing in the industry that says you can't do it. So she could go 5 miles to some other facility and find that they do have that practice in place."

Canfield is just lucky that she's at a hospital that doesn't practice that policy. What about the millions of Americans that are not as lucky?

Canfield is dealing with many of the same issues that Americans with little or no health coverage are struggling with. Millions of Americans go in to bankruptcy or lose their homes because of medical bills. Millions of others can't afford to pay for their own health coverage. Even programs such as COBRA, which is supposed to help unemployed workers get insurance, is ridiculously priced.

"There's a million stories just like mine that need to be told," Canfield told the AP. "I'm going to fight like a tiger to keep a future. I want a future."