WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Barack Obama did more today than just talk about Natoma Canfield, the Medina, Ohio cancer survivor whose 2009 letter to the president became a back story to the health care debate.

He also called her this evening, a White House official said.

The White House has not said what the two discussed. But it's not hard to imagine, given the president's remarks about her earlier today, after the Supreme Court upheld what's become known as Obamacare.

Canfield, a breast-cancer survivor, wrote to Obama on Dec. 29, 2009, describing how she went into debt trying to pay health insurance premiums. The president invited her to join him at a rally in Strongsville a few months later but she could not make it. She had been diagnosed with leukemia.

Ultimately the Cleveland Clinic agreed to treat her as a charity case because of her income as a cleaning woman.

In his comments today, Obama said:

"There’s a framed letter that hangs in my office right now. It was sent to me during the health care debate by a woman named Natoma Canfield. For years and years, Natoma did everything right. She bought health insurance. She paid her premiums on time. But 18 years ago, Natoma was diagnosed with cancer. And even though she’d been cancer-free for more than a decade, her insurance company kept jacking up her rates, year after year. And despite her desire to keep her coverage -- despite her fears that she would get sick again -- she had to surrender her health insurance, and was forced to hang her fortunes on chance.

"I carried Natoma’s story with me every day of the fight to pass this law. It reminded me of all the Americans, all across the country, who have had to worry not only about getting sick, but about the cost of getting well.

"Natoma is well today. And because of this law, there are other Americans -- other sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers -- who will not have to hang their fortunes on chance. These are the Americans for whom we passed this law."

You can watch the president's remarks here.