Women's Public Health and Safety Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, despite its puffed-up name, this bill has
nothing to do with protecting women's health or safety. The bill the
Republicans pass today would cut off access to health care for millions
of American families who rely on Medicaid.

This bill would cut off Medicaid reimbursement for any service,
Planned Parenthood or any doctor or hospital or clinic or local health
center that performs or is involved in any way with abortions.

If this bill passes, a woman seeking prenatal care for a planned
pregnancy could suddenly be cut off from her doctor if that doctor also
provides abortion services or even referral to abortion services.

A child with a life-threatening illness could be turned away from his
hospital because the hospital chair expressed views supportive of
abortion.

A senior citizen with a chronic illness could suddenly find his or
her prescription lapsed with no way to refill it because his or her
doctor is somehow involved with abortion.

My colleagues continue to insist that this bill won't interrupt care,
that these families, children, and seniors will just see different
doctors, will go to different hospitals.

How many of my colleagues have ever been on Medicaid? How many of
them have ever been turned away by a doctor or told they have to wait
months for an appointment because the doctor simply cannot afford to
accept any more Medicaid patients?

This bill would dramatically worsen the shortage of Medicaid doctors
and lengthen wait times for patients, putting more people at risk and
increasing healthcare costs in the long term. If their overarching goal
is dismantling Medicaid as we know it, this bill is a strong first
step.

If we really want to talk about a culture of life, we should be
bringing bills to the floor to encourage more doctors to serve in high-
need areas to give every child access to the highest quality health
care.

We should be talking about increasing funding for WIC and SNAP to
make sure parents, babies, and children aren't going to bed hungry at
night.

We should be talking about expanding education programs that target
low-income students. We should be talking about funding public housing
programs to provide stability to families.

We should be talking about lowering student loan debt to ensure
parents can give their kids every opportunity without a crushing burden
of debt.

What we should not be doing is cutting doctors and hospitals and
clinics and community healthcare centers out of Medicaid and putting
more lives at risk.

This bill is just another blatant attempt to intimidate doctors and
hospitals into ending abortion services. Under the guise of promoting
life, this bill puts more lives at risk.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

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