WASHINGTON — As a volunteer firefighter and EMT, Travis Ulerick of Dublin, Ind., has seen what’s right and what’s wrong with the nation’s health care system.

“The biggest thing we see is people put off getting health care,” said Ulerick, a religious-studies major at Ball State University. “They say they can’t afford the bill; they don’t have insurance.”

Ulerick, 25, will get to share his thoughts on health care reform with the president Thursday at a White House forum.

He’s one of seven “everyday Americans” who hosted community discussions about health care at then President-elect Barack Obama’s urging in December and got invited to the White House forum.

Ulerick was chosen to introduce the president.

In addition, the White House plans to feature Ulerick in an upcoming video on the administration’s new health care reform Web site.

“It was pretty much shock, really,” he said of his reaction to the invitation. “You don’t ever imagine that somebody from a town of 700-800 people is going to get plucked out and say, ’Hey, would you like to come to the White House?”’

The White House expects more than 120 participants. After opening remarks from Obama, the participants will break into five groups to discuss various aspects of how to reduce health care costs and expand coverage.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that Congress will take the lead on health care reform.

“This is … sort of the opening argument, if you will,” Gibbs said. “And the president looks forward to meeting with the participants and discussing their viewpoints. This is not, obviously, going to be done overnight. But I think this is a good first step in starting a process that the president believes is long overdue.”

In his budget proposal released last week, Obama suggested tax increases and spending cuts that would raise $634 billion over the next 10 years to begin paying for changes to the health care system. He did not specify how he would expand health care coverage to those who don’t have it, offering instead basic principles that should guide changes.

Some of the proposed spending cuts would hit two of Indiana’s biggest companies. The president wants to eliminate the subsidy that insurers like WellPoint get for offering Medicare Advantage, an alternative to the traditional Medicare program. And the president proposed reducing how much the government pays drugmakers like Eli Lilly for medicines for the poor.

Ulerick said he had been complaining to his mother about problems in the health care system he saw on his emergency runs. She encouraged him to do something, rather than just complain.

He signed up to host a local forum and pulled firetrucks out of the Dublin fire department to accommodate the more than 30 people who attended. They included other first responders, doctors and hospital administrators, and former Sen. Tom Daschle, whom Obama he had hoped would help lead the administration’s health care reform efforts. Daschle, however, withdrew as the president’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services after he acknowledged that he owed back taxes.

Some of the topics discussed at the December forum were the lack of focus on preventive care, the lack of primary care providers in some areas, and rising costs.

Ulerick knows that Washington has unsuccessfully tackled those issues before and hopes this time is different.

If you can get the American people’s support behind something," he said, “I don’t see how you can’t push it over the top.”