BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

bvelliquette@heraldsun.com; 918-1042

CHAPEL HILL -- A UNC doctor, who treats patients in Chatham County, met with President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden Monday to help push for health care reform.

Stephen Gamboa, who lives in Carrboro and primarily works at UNC's Chatham Hospital in Siler City, was one of a group of doctors who attended the event.

"These men and women here," said Obama, referring to the doctors in the audience, "would not be supporting health insurance reform if they really believed that it would lead to government bureaucrats making decisions that are best left to doctors.

"They would not be here today if they believed in any way that reform would damage the very critical and sacred doctor-patient relationship," Obama said.

Gamboa, the N.C. state director of Doctors for America, the group that was invited to meet with the president along with other groups of doctors, met Obama briefly after the speech got to shake his hand.

Doctors for America, which was founded in January 2009, is a grassroots group of physicians that believes health care must be reformed now, Gamboa said.

"I see patients every day, and I see how the health care system is not working for them," Gamboa said in a telephone interview. "I recognize the need for a drastic change in the health care system."

At Chatham Hospital, Gamboa regularly sees patients who don't have access to a primary care doctor because they don't have insurance.

"Most of these people are hard-working Americans, but through no fault of their own, they don't have health insurance," Gamboa said in a press release. "Too often I see hard-working families let dangerous medical conditions go without treatment. We need a system that provides high-quality care to everyone and doesn't bankrupt working families with medical bills."

Gamboa believes that health care reform will result in better care for more patients.

"It will allow me to spend more time with my patients and shield patients from unfair insurance practices," Gamboa said.

Those include discrimination against insuring people who already have a medical problem or dropping coverage of people who develop serious medical problems.

Gamboa also believes the public option, which would provide insurance through a federal government plan, is an important part of the health care reform package because it would provide competition for private insurance companies and prevent them from saying they must increase their rates to comply with other components of the health care plan.

The doctors also met and talked with John Podesta, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, about health care reform, Gamboa said.