[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 17, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      WOMEN AND CHILDREN'S HEALTH PROVISIONS IN HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mrs. MEEK of Florida asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, as the song goes: ``I'm every 
woman,'' and I rise to offer my support for the health care provisions 
for women and children that Chairman Pat Williams has incorporated in 
the health care reform bill being drafted by his Education and Labor 
Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations.
  If the distinctive health care needs of women and children are 
neglected in health care reform, how can we dare call it universal? 
Without correcting the longstanding failure to recognize the health 
needs that are characteristic of women and those which are 
characteristic of children, how can we possibly call this legislation 
reform?
  The benefits added in committee by Chairman Williams are essentially 
preventive or rehabilitative in nature. Preventive medicine has been 
called by all of us as the cost-effective approach to health care 
reform. It is also the most compassionate. It avoids a future of 
unnecessary suffering.
  For women, it provides, among other services, reproductive health 
care and regular checkups for cancer. For children with chronic and 
congenital conditions, it provides for rehabilitation services.
  Only by oversight, not by design, was this latter benefit left out of 
the administration's proposal. Only through inexplicable callousness 
could we fail to incorporate it in our final proposal to the President.
  Madam Speaker, these are good proposals, seeking good outcomes, both 
in terms of fiscal responsibility and in the quality of life. I urge 
they remain intact in any final bill we draft.
  Madam Speaker, ``I'm every woman, and so are you.''

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