[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 76 (Wednesday, May 8, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2724-S2725]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Women's Healthcare
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, back in 1876, Ann Reeves Jarvis was
teaching her Sunday school class about notable mothers in the Bible.
She ended that class with this prayer:
I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a
memorial mother's day commemorating her for the matchless
service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She
is entitled to it.
That was the prayer of Ann Reeves Jarvis. Her 12-year-old daughter
Anna, who was then a student in the class, took that prayer to heart
and went on to help establish Mother's Day in the United States in
1914.
As we approach Mother's Day this upcoming Sunday, I am gathered with
many of my Senate colleagues to urge our Republican friends here in the
Senate to reject many of the policies coming down from the Trump
administration that put women's health and well-being at risk.
Americans need access to family planning services. An investment in
family planning is money well spent because it helps families cope with
reproductive health planning and can help prevent health crises. This
is a win-win for those who receive these services and for all Americans
who, in the long run, must pay for health services that are the
inevitable result of neglect and failure to provide resources for
family planning.
While the Trump administration would have you believe that their
efforts are solely focused on eliminating access to abortion, the
reality is their actions are harmful to a broad array of family
planning services. For example, just in 2017, the administration tried
to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants more than a
year early. I want to point out that the city of Baltimore had one of
those grants, and with the help of programming from the Teen Pregnancy
and Prevention Program, Baltimore saw a 61-percent drop in teen
pregnancy between the years 2000 and 2016. The good news is that the
city of Baltimore and other grantees prevailed in Federal court, so
that money was restored.
We now see repeated steps by the Trump administration through its
recent title X Federal rulemaking that represent another attempt to
restrict access to quality, affordable reproductive healthcare and
prevent women from receiving the information they need to make informed
decisions for themselves about their healthcare. It would jeopardize
the entire title X health network.
Specifically, the rule would block the availability of Federal funds
to family planning providers, even if those family planning providers
separately offer access to abortion services. In other words, despite
the fact that Federal law is already crystal clear about no public
funds being used to pay for abortion, the administration policy would
ignore that reality.
Under the status quo, title X-funded clinics that provide abortion
must keep those services financially separate from their title X
activities. So this rule would interfere with the ability of women
throughout America to get that unbiased family planning service and
counseling. The rule would specifically prohibit any referral for
abortion services and end the longstanding guarantee that pregnant
title X patients receive comprehensive, unbiased counseling.
A primary goal of this regulation--and there has been no secret about
this--is to prevent Federal funds from going to comprehensive family
planning providers, like Planned Parenthood, with little or no regard
for the impact this has on women throughout the country--and men and
families. In fact, Planned Parenthood provides health services to 4 in
10 women in America. For many women and men, Planned Parenthood is the
only source of care in their community.
I want to recount a couple of stories I have received from my
Maryland constituents. One is from Caitlyn. She lives in Severna Park.
She shared with me the impact that Planned Parenthood had in her life.
She says that while growing up, she did not have a basic education when
it came to reproductive health services and options. She writes:
I knew I wasn't getting the whole story and I decided [to]
do my own research. Planned Parenthood had the answers to my
questions with no agenda, just facts.
She went on to share a different firsthand experience she had with
Planned Parenthood as a patient.
I needed services that were quick, affordable, and
compassionate, and that's exactly what I received. When it
came time to pay my bill, I was surprised to find that they
just asked for a small donation. This donation-for-services
is possible through Title X. Because of Title X, patients
like me and more than 30,000 other Marylanders can access
care, no matter what, regardless of our ability to pay.
That was Caitlyn.
I also heard from Tamara from Takoma Park, MD. She moved back to
Maryland to care for her aging mother and accepted her dream job. Her
dream job was directing a training and education fund for healthcare
workers. She hesitated to accept her dream job because the employer-
provided insurance plan was grandfathered into pre-Affordable Care Act
regulations, meaning that her preferred form of birth control wasn't
covered. Her prescription would cost her $125 a month, something she
could not afford. Through her local Planned Parenthood, she was able to
get the prescription for $20 a month. She wrote to me saying:
Without my local Title X-funded community clinic, I--a
graduate of Wellesley College, a Master's Degree holder, an
engaged community member, a daughter, a passionate person on
a meaningful career path--would be unable to afford my
prescription, leaving me in the uncomfortable and, quite
frankly, unfair position of having to choose between my
health or quality of life.
If you look at these stories, you will find that the proposed
regulations coming down from the Trump administration prioritize
ideology over patient health and safety and fiction over healthcare
facts. So that is something about title X.
I want to say a word about the Affordable Care Act, as well, and the
important protections it provides for people throughout our country,
but I want to focus for a minute on the protections it provides to
women.
It became the law of the land 9 years ago. I don't think any of us
expected we would still be fighting as hard as we are to try to protect
those essential healthcare protections. Despite the failure in this
body and this Senate just last year to overturn the Affordable Care
Act, we still see a constant effort from the administration, both
through nonstop, harmful, regulatory efforts and a wholesale effort
through the Federal courts. So I think it is important to remind all of
us about what the consequences of stripping away all those protections
would be. With respect to women's healthcare, it would do away with the
provision that requires coverage of maternity care as an essential
health benefit. It would reverse the provisions that ended gender
discrimination, which previously allowed insurance companies to charge
women higher premiums than men for their healthcare. It also would
eliminate the requirement to provide coverage for preventive health
services
[[Page S2725]]
like mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, and
regular well-baby and well-child visits with no cost-sharing.
So it is important, as we look at the ongoing efforts to sabotage the
Affordable Care Act in pieces or get rid of it wholesale, that the
consequences of getting rid of that for women's health would be
devastating.
I heard from a constituent at that time; her name was Pamela. She had
aged off her parents' insurance in college and became uninsured and,
therefore, put off her medical care until she ended up in the emergency
room, had to declare bankruptcy to get out from under her medical
bills. She wrote me during that debate over the Affordable Care Act, as
follows:
Today my asthma medicine is covered with a nominal copay. I
can see my doctor before a case of bronchitis becomes
something worse, and I do not need to go to the ER for
treatment. Now I have a twenty year old in college who has
pre-existing conditions, unlike me she is still covered under
our health insurance and her prescriptions are affordable.
What happens to me, my daughter, and my husband who all have
pre-existing conditions if our insurance is allowed to go
back to the old days of charging more for our coverage? What
happens to my daughter if she can no longer be on our policy?
Like many of us, I have other stories I have received from
Marylanders who are either worried about losing their access to
healthcare through title X or worried about losing coverage under the
Affordable Care Act. I hope, as we reflect on all of the challenges we
are facing and as we honor mothers on Mother's Day, we don't support
actions that would actually degrade their access to important quality
healthcare.
I will close by urging my colleagues to reflect on the words of Ann
Reeves Jarvis, who I mentioned earlier was the one who had uttered that
prayer that led to the establishment of Mother's Day. What she also
said was that we need to honor the ``matchless service'' that mothers
and other women in this country ``render to humanity in every field of
life.''
I believe it is our obligation to make sure we provide access to
quality healthcare and choices for all of our constituents and for
every American. As we reflect on Mother's Day, be very aware of the
impact our actions will have on women throughout the United States.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.