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The president joked with the crowd, adlibbed, and replied "I love you back" when an audience member declared affection for him.
Putting a human face on the cost of an ailing health care system, Obama told the story of a father struggling with the news his newborn son was hemophiliac and an insurance firm would not cover the treatment.
"I think it's important that President Obama does connect health insurance with people's real-life issues and struggles," said Theron Washington, a first-year medical student at Howard University in Washington, "the other side are trying to make it about money."
The speech was regularly interrupted by deafening cheers and at one point by a lone heckler, who shouted "child killer" and was booed and quickly ushered out by security agents.
The rally was Obama's latest attempt to hit back at opponents of his proposed reforms, who have dominated the media spotlight in recent weeks by disrupting town hall meetings and holding noisy rallies.
It was also a bid by Obama's behind-the-scenes team, whose handling of his campaign took him from being a little known senator from Illinois to the White House, to boost the president's popularity ratings.
Obama has seen his popularity fall over the summer months, as politicians fought over health care and the public reacted to what it saw as excessive government spending.
Most in the stadium were diehard backers of the president. Mexican waves traveled around the bleachers and under digital displays on blue tickerboards reading "Stable and Secure Health Care," as they crowd waited for Obama.
Some had arrived before 6:00 am for the speech, which Obama gave around noon.
Outside the stadium, a handful of opponents staged a noisy demonstration against what they call "Obamacare."
"We know that abortion and the slaughter of innocent children is in this bill," said Missy Smith, a member of WAKE-UP -- Women Against the Killing and Exploitation of Unprotected Persons -- who was dressed as an elderly woman who was "about to be euthanized by a death panel."
Opponents of health care reform have said Obama's plan would set up death panels to euthanize the elderly and fund abortions with federal money.
They are also opposed to what they say is the untenable price tag of reform.
"This is when the folks who want to kill reform fight back with everything they've got. This is when they spread all kinds of rumors to scare and intimidate Americans," said Obama.
"Stop paying attention to the folks who are spreading false charges, crazy rumors about our plan. Pay attention to the health care experts," said Obama.
A survey published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) showed that 62.9 percent of physicians back having a government insurance plan as part of Americans' health care coverage.
Obama called on the rapt audience at the basketball stadium to be "fired up" and "ready to go" to help push through health care reform, recalling a slogan coined by his campaign back when "nobody could pronounce my name."
As the crowd filed out of the sports arena at the end of the speech, many seemed to have heard the message as they called out to each other on the university campus: "Fired up. Ready to go."
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Putting a human face on the cost of an ailing health care system, Obama told the story of a father struggling with the news his newborn son was hemophiliac and an insurance firm would not cover the treatment.
"I think it's important that President Obama does connect health insurance with people's real-life issues and struggles," said Theron Washington, a first-year medical student at Howard University in Washington, "the other side are trying to make it about money."
The speech was regularly interrupted by deafening cheers and at one point by a lone heckler, who shouted "child killer" and was booed and quickly ushered out by security agents.
The rally was Obama's latest attempt to hit back at opponents of his proposed reforms, who have dominated the media spotlight in recent weeks by disrupting town hall meetings and holding noisy rallies.
It was also a bid by Obama's behind-the-scenes team, whose handling of his campaign took him from being a little known senator from Illinois to the White House, to boost the president's popularity ratings.
Obama has seen his popularity fall over the summer months, as politicians fought over health care and the public reacted to what it saw as excessive government spending.
Most in the stadium were diehard backers of the president. Mexican waves traveled around the bleachers and under digital displays on blue tickerboards reading "Stable and Secure Health Care," as they crowd waited for Obama.
Some had arrived before 6:00 am for the speech, which Obama gave around noon.
Outside the stadium, a handful of opponents staged a noisy demonstration against what they call "Obamacare."
"We know that abortion and the slaughter of innocent children is in this bill," said Missy Smith, a member of WAKE-UP -- Women Against the Killing and Exploitation of Unprotected Persons -- who was dressed as an elderly woman who was "about to be euthanized by a death panel."
Opponents of health care reform have said Obama's plan would set up death panels to euthanize the elderly and fund abortions with federal money.
They are also opposed to what they say is the untenable price tag of reform.
"This is when the folks who want to kill reform fight back with everything they've got. This is when they spread all kinds of rumors to scare and intimidate Americans," said Obama.
"Stop paying attention to the folks who are spreading false charges, crazy rumors about our plan. Pay attention to the health care experts," said Obama.
A survey published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) showed that 62.9 percent of physicians back having a government insurance plan as part of Americans' health care coverage.
Obama called on the rapt audience at the basketball stadium to be "fired up" and "ready to go" to help push through health care reform, recalling a slogan coined by his campaign back when "nobody could pronounce my name."
As the crowd filed out of the sports arena at the end of the speech, many seemed to have heard the message as they called out to each other on the university campus: "Fired up. Ready to go."
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