A mom with a message: Porterfield visits Washington D.C.

(Photo by Monique Cooke) Barbara Porterfield, left, a work-from-home mom in rural Plymouth County, speaks in Washington D.C. with Sara Selgrade, Ph.D., public policy fellow with Sen. Tom Harkin, explaining her family's struggle to find affordable, usable health insurance. Porterfield also met with people from Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Steve King's offices during a three-day visit to the capitol to speak out for health care reform. [Click to enlarge]

"I'm not a lobbyist," Barbara Porterfield said. "I'm a mom."

Even so, the rural Plymouth County woman just returned from Washington D.C. where she spoke to legislative officials about her family's plight to get affordable health care.

Porterfield, a medical transcriptionist, had health coverage through her company until its ownership changed a few years ago.

The quality of the coverage dropped, Porterfield said, and she was forced to look into the private health care market to find something affordable for her husband David, a dairy herdsman, their three daughters and herself.

What they ended up with isn't perfect, she said. They pay a $500 premium monthly, although that premium goes up every six months, regardless of whether the family has claims or not. Their deductible is $3,500.

"That's 80 percent of our mortgage," she said. "We pay $10,000 a year before we get benefits."

But if one of her daughters -- Brenna, Alexis and Erin -- end up in the hospital with appendicitis or something like that, the bill would be too much to pay without coverage.

So when Porterfield saw an online survey from Consumer Reports asking people who were unhappy with their health care to send in their story, she clicked the button and did just that.

The next thing Porterfield heard from Consumer Reports was the group wanted her family to be part of a health care documentary called "Cover America."

"Two people from Consumer Reports traveled across the U.S. in an RV," Porterfield said. "They stopped here and filmed our story."

The 2008 compilation of families' stories was put on DVD and on the Internet to share with all lawmakers. The intent, according to Consumer Reports Health, was to make people's struggle with finding affordable health care personal for politicians.

Then, earlier this year, Consumer Reports representatives took the fight to change the health care industry one step further.

They offered to fly some of the families they filmed to Washington D.C. to talk to the lawmakers themselves.

The Porterfield family was on that list.

Barbara decided to take the offer.

"I figure if I can gripe about it, and I get a chance to tell someone who can actually make a change, then I'm going to go for it," she said.

From Wednesday to Friday last week, Porterfield met with representatives from the offices of Sen. Tom Harkin, Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Steve King.

"I wasn't there to talk policy," Porterfield said. "I got the impression we were there to put a face on the health care issue. It's not just numbers."

Her family is stuck in the middle with health care, she said.

"We don't qualify for the free lunch or Hawk-I programs, but we don't make enough to buy better health care," she said. "My story is not so different from other people's story."

Personally, Porterfield is pushing for a public option for health care -- a plan set up by the government that people could choose to buy if they wanted to rather than private health care. Harkin's office, she said, was on board with that idea.

"But even if the government makes private companies sit up and say, we can't keep raising the premiums every six months, that would be something," Porterfield said.

Part of her fight is to make health insurance companies provide more understandable information to people who buy their policies. Wading through hundreds of pages is not something a customer should have to do, she said, adding that people should understand what they're paying for.

"I wouldn't go to Wal-Mart and give them $500 and tell them to give me a cart full of something," Porterfield said.

She supports lawmakers' idea to create an exchange where people can compare health care plans and benefits, to see what they'll get for their money.

"I don't want anything for free," Porterfield said. "I don't mind paying for a product, but it has to be a product I can use."

When one of her daughter comes to her with a temperature and a deep cough, she doesn't want to have to worry how she'll pay for the $79 doctor visit plus the chest x-ray and the prescription.

"I don't think anybody should have to worry about that," she said.

Hopefully, she added, legislators will work to bring down premiums so it's not a choice between health care and a family's mortgage.

Not only health insurance companies have to change, according to Porterfield.

America, she said, needs to relearn how to use health care.

"As Americans, we like tests," she said. "We're going to have to learn how to reallocate our resources better."

Avoiding one unnecessary MRI, she said, could pay for dozens of doctor visits.

"It's more of a responsibility than a right -- like land stewardship," Porterfield said. "We need to become responsible consumers."