President Obama will visit Iowa later this week as part of a nationwide barnstorming tour to build public support for the health care reform plan that cleared congress Sunday night.

Obama will be in Iowa City on Thursday. A White House spokesman says Obama’s making the trip to Iowa City because that’s where Obama first announced his health care plan in May of 2007.

The White House aide says Obama plans to “discuss how health insurance reform lowers costs for small businesses and American families.” Critics of the health care plan have promised protests around the country at each of Obama’s stops.

Obama is expected to cite Iowa as the birthplace for a “grassroots campaign for reform that led directly to the legislation passed this week.” Back on May 29, 2007, Obama closed a speech at the University of Iowa medical school with a call to action.

“Never forget that we have it within our power to shape history in this country. It’s not in our character to sit idly by as victims of fate or circumstance, but we’re people of action and innovation, forever pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” Obama said in 2007. “…The time has come for affordable, universal health care in this country and I look forward to meet this challenge in the weeks and months to come.”

Again, that was candidate Barack Obama, speaking in Iowa City on May 29, 2007.