[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 40 (Thursday, March 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H1634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, what this health debate boils down to is 
this question: Whose side are you on? Are you listening to and fighting 
for the American people or are you listening to insurance executives 
and fighting to line their pockets? I am listening to and fighting for 
the American people, and especially the Wisconsinites who will benefit 
so significantly from health care reform.
  This evening, I rise to speak about how health care reform will help 
women. Women shoulder a disproportionate burden in today's broken 
health care system. Perhaps most shocking is the discrimination women 
face in health insurance simply because we are women. To some insurers, 
being a woman is a preexisting condition. In Wisconsin, as in many 
other States, if a woman and a man purchase identical insurance 
coverage in the individual market, the woman will be charged more even 
though the medical services covered are exactly the same.
  In small businesses in Wisconsin and across the country, insurance 
companies are allowed to count how many male and female employees work 
at that small business. If the workforce is disproportionately female, 
the insurance company charges more. So, what sort of small businesses 
pay the most for health care? Child care centers, home health agencies, 
and other small businesses with female-dominated workforces.
  Adding insult to injury is that we all know that women's pay still 
lags behind men. Nationally, women earn 78 cents to every dollar earned 
by a man. And in Wisconsin, that figure is even worse--73 cents to the 
dollar. So women who make less have the added burden of paying more for 
their health coverage.
  Our health care reform measure will end this practice of gender 
rating, and that is just one reason why women have so much to gain in 
health reform.
  So I ask again, whose side are you on? The hundreds of thousands of 
women that you represent or the insurance companies that get away with 
these practices?
  We have talked during the debate a lot about people who can't get any 
insurance at all because of preexisting conditions, something in their 
medical history or health status that the insurance company points to 
and says, We are not going to cover you. Women also bear the brunt of 
these practices. Can you believe that women who have been the victims 
of domestic abuse have been denied health insurance because their 
victimization was considered a preexisting condition? Women who have 
given birth by C-section are also routinely either refused insurance or 
provided insurance that specifically denies coverage in the event they 
have a future C-section.
  Our health reform efforts will prevent the insurance companies from 
denying coverage to women who have been the victims of domestic 
violence and women who have had C-sections. In fact, our measure will 
stop the practice of denying needed insurance based on preexisting 
conditions altogether.
  So I ask, whose side are you on? I'm on the side of all Wisconsinites 
who have ever faced such denials, not on the side of the companies who 
refused to cover them.
  Women also have trouble finding insurance policies that cover what 
they need when they shop for insurance in the individual market. In 
that market, it can be next to impossible to find insurance that covers 
maternity care. In a survey by the National Women's Law Center of plans 
offered in the individual market in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, 
they could not find a single plan that offered maternity care. I find 
this shocking. And health care reform will require all new plans to 
cover a wide set of benefits, including maternity care.
  Mr. Speaker, Wisconsinites sent me to Congress to fight for them. I 
ran for Congress in order to fight for the people of Wisconsin who have 
been denied insurance based on preexisting conditions or had their 
coverage dropped in their very time of need. In order to prevent 
Wisconsinites from having to declare personal bankruptcy because of 
mounting medical bills from a serious illness, and in order to help 
families be able to afford their premiums and their deductibles and 
their copays, this health care reform effort addresses all those 
problems and then some. It's not perfect and it's not all I wanted it 
to be, but it is a darn good start.

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