Directing the Cleark to Make Corrections in the Enrollement of the Affordable Care Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

This ``enrollment correction'' is yet another procedural maneuver. It is designed to destroy health care for millions of American women. It is unacceptable, and we will not stand for it.

The disgraceful rightwing assault on reproductive freedom has become an all-out war on the health and the well-being of millions of low-income American women. Each year, Planned Parenthood provides 2.7 million people, men and women, with lifesaving services.

I would hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would open their hearts--open their hearts--to healthcare services for women who don't have the wherewithal to go to the same kinds of private doctors that the men and women of the United States House of Representatives have the opportunity to do. Open your hearts, because for many, Planned Parenthood is their only way of receiving these healthcare services.

The president of the American Congress of OB-GYNs has warned that, without Planned Parenthood, many patients will be left without a doctor; and that is what these attacks are designed to achieve. The rightwing does not want poor women to have health care, period. It is spiteful, it is cruel, and it is wrong.

We know what happens when funding is taken away from Planned Parenthood. In Scott County, Indiana, a full-scale HIV epidemic was triggered that has been declared a public healthcare emergency. Do we want more people to die? Are we really prepared to see that picture repeated across the country?

The American people have made it clear that they will not accept any bill that cuts funding for women's health care or compromises reproductive freedoms. Let us in this body respect and trust the healthcare decisions that women make.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Let's respect and trust the healthcare decisions that women make. We must respect their wishes. I urge my colleagues to vote against this disgraceful bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

What we are facing here today and what this is about, this so-called enrollment correction, is a procedural maneuver because the United States Senate sent over a continuing resolution that continues to fund Planned Parenthood. Because the majority is interested in defunding the opportunity for healthcare services for women, they have asked for this procedural maneuver to defund Planned Parenthood.

It is simply about taking funds away from American women. Think about it. Think about shutting the government down because of women's health. The lack of care and concern, first and foremost, about the 2.7 million men and women that Planned Parenthood serves every year is a grave consequence. But in addition, shutting down the Federal Government the last time cost $24 billion to American taxpayers, held up disability checks for veterans, and, in fact, held back people's IRS rebates.

Their preoccupation with denying women's health is cruel, it is spiteful, it is wrong, and it does great harm to this great Nation. Vote against this bad piece of legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source