[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 8, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2719-S2720]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Women's Healthcare

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I come to the floor this afternoon to 
join my colleagues in raising concerns about the unrelenting attacks 
that this administration has waged on the health of women in New 
Hampshire and across the country.
  With Mother's Day just around the corner, it is important to make 
clear that we cannot stand idly by while the administration undermines 
access to maternity care, to family planning, and to reproductive care 
for women.
  Through misguided executive orders, regulations, and other actions, 
this administration is making it more difficult for women to access the 
care and services they need in communities across the country and 
abroad.
  Now, new mothers deal with significant medical expenses. That is why 
we

[[Page S2720]]

worked very hard, when we were writing the Affordable Care Act, to 
require insurance coverage for maternity care, to help new mothers 
cover the cost of obstetric services and of hospital charges for 
childbirth and other expenses.
  The Affordable Care Act and the access to maternity care coverage it 
provides have made a real difference for so many people in New 
Hampshire and across the country.
  One of those women is Samantha Fox from Bow, NH. Samantha is now a 
State legislator in New Hampshire, but prior to the Affordable Care 
Act, Samantha was denied coverage for health insurance because of a 
reproductive system disorder, and the insurance that she was able to 
get didn't provide prenatal and maternity care coverage.
  Well, thanks to the ACA, she was guaranteed coverage of these vital 
maternity care services that were so important when she gave birth to 
her son Leo in 2017.
  We can't go back to those days before the Affordable Care Act, when 
only 12 percent of health plans on the individual market covered 
maternity care or when women could be charged higher premiums than men 
for the very same coverage.
  But that is exactly what the Trump administration is trying to do by 
expanding the availability of junk plans that are not required to cover 
maternity care, and that is what this administration is trying to do by 
urging the courts to strike down the Affordable Care Act in its 
entirety.
  Now, in addition, at a time when 43 percent of childbirths in this 
country are covered and paid for by the Medicaid Program, the Trump 
administration continues to propose Medicaid block grants and funding 
caps that would fail to adequately support States for the cost of 
coverage for pregnant women and new mothers.
  Senator Casey was very eloquent in talking about what will happen if 
the effort to reduce Medicaid is successful.
  Sadly, the barriers to women's healthcare that this administration 
has created go beyond just insurance coverage. They are also imposing 
significant impediments to access to family planning services.
  The administration's title X gag rule would violate the provider-
patient relationship by prohibiting providers who receive Federal 
family planning grants from informing their patients about reproductive 
health options, including safe and legal abortions.
  In 2017, more than 16,000 Granite Staters obtained care from family 
planning providers that receive support through Federal title X family 
planning grants. This includes more than 1,200 cervical cancer 
screenings and nearly 1,500 breast exams that were provided by New 
Hampshire's Planned Parenthood facilities that, if this gag rule is 
allowed to stand, would then be eliminated, and women would have to get 
those screenings somewhere else, and in many cases, the women would not 
be able to afford the cost of those screenings. The title X gag rule 
puts access to these and so many other vital services at risk.

  The administration's barriers to family planning services extend 
around the world as a result of a similar global gag rule on 
international family planning grants.
  Based on the unfortunate experience with the global gag rule, we 
already know that when you exclude entities like Planned Parenthood and 
other providers from family planning grants, you will impede access to 
care for vulnerable women in impoverished countries around the world, 
and we are now beginning to get the data from so many NGOs that provide 
those services.
  It is ironic because people in this administration who say they 
support the gag rule say they do it because they are trying to reduce 
the number of abortions. Yet what we know is that putting on this 
global gag rule increases the number of unwarranted pregnancies, 
increases the number of unsafe abortions, and increases the number of 
maternal deaths in childbirth. I don't understand why the data is not 
convincing to those people who share the view that we should try to 
reduce the number of unwarranted pregnancies and reduce the number of 
abortions. That is why, each year, I have come together with Senators 
Collins and Murkowski to lead a bipartisan charge to repeal the global 
gag rule and to bolster resources for international family planning. 
Hopefully, we will be able to pass that again this year.
  In light of all of these dangerous efforts to erode protections for 
women's health, we need to stand together here in Congress. We need to 
join forces with women around the country and around the world. We need 
to say enough is enough. Women should be able to access health 
insurance for reproductive services and for family planning services, 
just as men can access health insurance for all of the services they 
need.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Connecticut.