Introducing the Health Care for Women Resolution

Floor Speech

Introducing the Health Care for Women Resolution

* Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Health Care for Women Resolution of 2008 with my colleague in the Senate, Senator Debbie Stabenow. As we move towards enacting comprehensive Universal Health Care we cannot leave out the important and unique health care issues of women. Women are often responsible for safeguarding the care for their families and they must be a central part of every universal health care debate.

* I believe that the Health Care for Women Resolution recognizes the numerous of women as health care decision makers, caregivers and providers and requires that lawmakers acknowledge their needs during health care reform conversations.

* We know that women face exceptional challenges and have a very personal stake in fixing our broken health care system. It is unacceptable that more women are uninsured and pay more for health care than their male counterparts. This resolution calls on Congress to take notice of these obstacles and make significant gains in solving these problems.

* This resolution asks Congress to pass legislation within 18 months that provides health care for women and health care for all. I am all too familiar with how tough it is to provide care for our families. As a mother, grandmother and member of Congress, I will fight to make sure that women play a central part in every health care discussion.

* The need for this resolution is clear. More than 17 million non-elderly women were uninsured in 2006, an increase of 1.2 million women since 2004. Women also pay 68 percent more than men for out-of-pocket medical costs, largely because of their reproductive health needs. Thirteen percent of all pregnant women are uninsured making them less likely to seek prenatal care and more likely to experience an adverse outcome after giving birth or pregnancy-related mortality.

* Older women are particularly at risk. They often receive care through their husband and can become uninsured if their husband dies or loses private insurance by becoming eligible for Medicare. Because they have less disposable income, older women also have trouble paying growing out-of-pocket costs for the care they need. Moreover many older women have periodically left the workforce to raise families or care for aging family members they tend to have lower Social Security and pension benefits required to help them with increasing chronic care conditions.

* Any health care discussions must also take into account the barriers women of color face in accessing quality care. Hispanic and Native American women and children are 3 times and African Americans nearly twice as likely to be uninsured that non-Hispanic whites.

* I along with 32 of my colleagues in both the House and Senate agree, it is time to start acknowledging women in all efforts that we make to solve our nation's growing health care crisis.

* I urge all of my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation.

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