Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I hope that one day soon it will not be necessary to come to the floor of this Senate and shine a spotlight on how the Trump administration is making it harder and harder for women in America to get the healthcare they need and deserve. It seems like not a week goes by without the Trump administration full-on attacking women's healthcare. It is the agenda of what I call healthcare discrimination, and it is out in full force.

The latest news came out officially less than 24 hours ago. The Trump administration has put itself right in the middle of women and their doctors, denying access to critical information that millions of women rely on from physicians and nurses--the very providers they trust and depend on. What this means is that across this country you can say good-bye to the guarantee that women are getting the whole story about their health and the options they have for their care. For millions of women, the healthcare they need is going to have to get a Trump stamp of approval, and that Trump stamp of approval is going to be the requirement to get the care they need.

I just want to say to my colleagues here in the Senate that I think this alone makes a mockery of all the talk I remember hearing from Republican colleagues in this body who said there is going to be patient-centered care in America. The developments in the last 24 hours basically say that with respect to healthcare, it is not going to be patient-centered care, but it is going to be politics-centered care.

Now, that patient-centered care concept was one of the most common talking points I remember hearing again and again. We heard it in the Finance Committee, where I have the honor to be the ranking Democrat. We heard it again and again: We are going to have patient-centered care. It was part of the crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The whole point of that patient-centered care slogan was to say that the government shouldn't come between patients and their doctors and that it wasn't going to be about politics; it was going to be about patients--making sure that politics and the government didn't come between patients and their doctors.

So here we are now, a few months later, and the Trump administration has just decided point-blank that it will decide what is best for women in Oregon and across the country. They basically said that they ought to be able to gag doctors and deny women the right to hear about healthcare options that, fortunately, are perfectly legal in America today.

The fact is, this new decree--this dictate--from the Trump administration comes with a battery of new restrictions on healthcare clinics that millions of women depend on every single day. We all know what it is about. It is an attack on Planned Parenthood. It is an attack on vital sources of care for women.

As I have said on this floor--I have gone through it again and again--the vast amount of work done by Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion. It is all about vital preventive services for women, which, by the way, are especially important in rural areas.

I am sure we are going to be talking about women's healthcare tomorrow in the Senate Finance Committee, where we will be having a hearing specifically on rural healthcare. There is bipartisan interest in that topic, but I want colleagues to know, it is pretty hard to promote all of the opportunities for sound healthcare and bipartisanship when you have a decision from the Trump administration that has the potential to hit women's healthcare in rural communities like a wrecking ball.

In States like Oregon, thousands of women live in communities where there is not a clinic or a doctor's office every few miles. If the Trump administration finds a backdoor way to shutter the few options these women have today, they may not have anywhere else to turn to get the essentials of healthcare. Women could lose the right to see the doctor of their choosing.

I will just say it point-blank: If somebody wants to take away the right of women in America to see the doctors and the providers of their choice, they are going to have to run over me. I will tell you, I think women are going to win that fight.

To have women lose access to lifesaving services like cancer screenings, routine physicals, birth control, prenatal care, and so much more--that ought to be off the table for politics. It shouldn't be about Democrats and Republicans; it should be about commonsense approaches to ensure that women have all of the options for the healthcare they want and deserve.

Taking healthcare choices away from women is fundamentally wrong. Depriving women of essential healthcare information that they have every right to hear about is fundamentally wrong. The Trump administration putting itself between women and their doctors is fundamentally wrong.

The decision that came down last night, which we learned about last night, is a reckless one. It is a harmful one. We ought to make no mistake about it, it is going to make healthcare worse for women across the country.

I have now had to say it too many times to count: It is long past time for these attacks on women's healthcare to end. I hope it will not be necessary to come to this floor again.

The Trump administration will see how flawed the decision--the dictate--that came down last night is and will retract it. But until they do, I will come to this floor and make the case for ensuring that women are empowered in our country to be able to see the healthcare providers of their choice, to have the opportunity to access the vast array of services that are largely preventive from sea to shining sea.

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