[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 40 (Thursday, March 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1632-H1633]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WOMEN AND HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I would like to thank our friend and 
colleague, Congresswoman Woolsey, for organizing this very important 
statement, historic statement. Women that come from all over America, 
Members of Congress who have no ax to grind, who have no representation 
of special interest other than the American people: we stand on this 
floor to answer our colleagues and those who have offered a negative 
perspective, all kinds of obstructions and poor commentary.
  Like an email I received blaming people for their obesity and 
diabetes. Yes, we need to be a healthier country, but does anybody 
realize that insurance companies would never provide for preventative 
care so that we could be tested and that we could learn to eat 
differently, to watch our diets? That is why this country spends more 
time wasting dollars on those who are sick.
  So I stand today to be able to say to all of the moms and nurturers 
who happen to be women that we have listened to your call. We have 
actually recognized that it is important to provide for preventative 
care. You know what you do.
  As we were raised by our moms and grandparents and aunts and uncles, 
they told us wipe our nose with tissues, wash our hands way before this 
whole

[[Page H1633]]

concept has come with automatic hand washers and bottled water. They 
wanted us to be clean and to respect cleanliness. Why? It was a method 
of preventing disease. But we were sick anyhow. And when we got sick, 
we couldn't get to the emergency room. We couldn't get to a doctor. We 
couldn't get to a hospital because many times that required health 
insurance.
  So today for the women of America, for all of the women who have been 
denied insurance because of pregnancy, of a C-section, of issues that 
deal with womanhood, we now stand up and declare freedom with the 
passing of this bill.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I might say to you that all that is in this bill I 
don't agree with. Frankly, I'm concerned about the position being taken 
on physician-owned hospitals, many of them who have come and saved 
neighborhoods by opening up hospitals, declaring desert areas where 
rural communities had no hospitals, they came in and opened them up on 
inner-city neighborhoods. We understand that all of them are going to 
be looking for long-term fixes down the road almost the same way when 
Medicare was passed in 1965.
  That wasn't a perfect system, but I can tell you that of all the 
lives of women that it has saved since its passage in 1965, for one, it 
saved the life of Ivalita Bennett Jackson, my mom, who now lives and 
lives enthusiastically with a love of life because of the resources 
that came about through Medicare. And she worked. So this is not a 
handout.
  So this bill, for example, is going to give women affordability. It's 
going to give women in States the opportunity to go into a health 
insurance exchange pool, pick the insurance that they need. It's going 
to give women the right of choosing, give women the right to have 
healthy bodies. It's going to focus the responsibility of insurance on 
employers.
  It's going to make sure that Medicare is strong. If you're an elderly 
woman, it's going to close the doughnut hole for all of the insurance 
needs that you have. It's going to help my mother-in-law, E. Theophia 
Lee, who needs care as we speak. It's going to give her the opportunity 
to buy prescription drugs without going into the poorhouse.
  It is going to provide for an expanded Medicaid, and it's going to 
work on our hospitals in our community, provide 100 percent Medicaid 
coverage in the first year, 95 percent, and then 90 percent.

                              {time}  1900

  Mr. Speaker, this is going to open the doors of opportunity for 
community health clinics so that women can be engaged in preventative 
care. Women are nurturers. They need to be able to take themselves to 
doctors and their children to doctors at the same time. That's what 
community health clinics will do. They will be set up in your 
neighborhood. They will have full service, geriatric care, pediatric 
care, and, yes, the care that will take care of women and their 
individual needs.
  Mental health parity will be in this particular bill so individuals 
who are concerned about mental health needs will not have to hide, 
cover themselves up, go in the dark of night or not even get the care 
that they need. It is going to be there in this bill. There's going to 
be a demand for health insurance companies to cover mental health 
needs.
  What a new day this will be to be able to allow women to take care of 
their children. Let me remind you that there are stories all across 
America. The mother whose son died because he did not have health 
insurance. A young man who believed in giving help to other people, a 
young lawyer who gave pro bono work, but he died because he had no 
health insurance. Or the mother who came to my town hall meetings, was 
crying because she couldn't get her child into school. Why? Because her 
insurance didn't cover a doctor's visit. Well, that will be cured. This 
is going to cure the ills of women across America.
  Vote for this bill.

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