[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 40 (Thursday, March 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H1599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, the whole Nation desperately needs health 
care reform, but no group of Americans needs it more than women, women 
who face discrimination and insult at the hands of the broken status 
quo.
  We all know that the current system allows insurance companies to 
deny coverage based on preexisting conditions, but I wonder how many of 
my colleagues realize that, essentially, being a woman is a preexisting 
condition. Pregnancy, for example, or C-sections can be deemed 
preexisting conditions. And most unbelievably of all, insurance 
companies can legally turn their backs on women who have suffered 
injuries due to domestic violence, because that, too, can be defined as 
a preexisting condition.
  We should all be ashamed of a system that puts insurance company 
profits ahead of healthy American women. It's time for women to no 
longer be a preexisting condition. Pass the health care bill.

                          ____________________