Women For Health Care Reform
Floor Speech
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you so much, Congresswoman Woolsey, for organizing us tonight. I appreciate it. I learned so much just sitting here listening to the women that have been talking about why this legislation is so important to women, why we need health care reform, and some of the facts of life about women. I learned from Congresswoman Jackie Speier an amazing fact that I'm going to carry with me--that a 40-year-old woman, she said, who does not smoke, has to pay more for her insurance than a 40-year-old man who smokes. This makes absolutely no sense.
I think maybe it was put best by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who said, Being a woman is a preexisting condition. That pretty much sums it up. According to the Commonwealth Report--that's a very well known and reputable think tank on health care--says that 45 percent of women are uninsured or underinsured; 52 percent of women have foregone necessary care because of the cost, including not filling a prescription. We know that. We have all heard about that, about people who come to our office and they are cutting their prescriptions in half, how they're not taking them to the drugstore to fill them, skipping a medical test, or not going to the doctor. And we know that for young women, only about 12 percent of the plans on the private market cover maternity. That was talked about tonight.
And that's not just a problem for women. That's a problem for families. For heaven's sake, you expect that when you have health insurance, that if you get pregnant and you're going to have a baby, that your insurance company is going to cover it. It's kind of basic. But maternity can even be considered a preexisting condition, that a woman cannot get insurance because she was pregnant. Of course, having a Cesarian section, that's a preexisting condition. Or being a victim of domestic violence, that's a preexisting condition.
The insurance industry thinks women cost more. We do use more health care services. That's true. And so throughout our life we pay about 48 percent more for health insurance than men do. It's because we're women.
I think it's wrong, and that's why in this historic legislation that we're about to pass, we end gender discrimination. Women will not be discriminated against.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Let me emphasize that. I think that is one of the most important things that's in our legislation. Because, after all, who does not have some kind of preexisting condition? And for the insurance companies, sometimes they'll call acne a preexisting condition that will preclude people from health care. This bill will say, when it goes into full effect--Congresswoman Woolsey is right. Children almost immediately will not be excluded for preexisting conditions. But for everyone else, in 2014, they will not be able to exclude you because you've been sick.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. The other thing is that--I don't know if the French Ambassador bragged at all, but France is considered number one in the world in terms of health care results. They have healthier people than anyone else in the world as a population, and they spend far less than we do, about half what we do per person.
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Yes, 9 percent.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And we're at about 17 percent.
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. That's right.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And the United States of America ranks--what is it?--about 17th in the world in our health outcomes next to hardly developed countries, and the reason is simple. We have 30 million people who have no health insurance, and then we have millions and millions of others who think they're insured until they get sick, and then they find out that they're underinsured.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. You know, you had talked about, and I think you were absolutely eloquent, that we've never seen a perfect bill. But, you know, Social Security and Medicare, which are not only the most popular but the most effective programs that we have in our country, to guarantee a dignified retirement, to make sure that people, that older Americans, people with disabilities don't do without, orphans don't do without if they lose a parent, those bills didn't start out as good as they are now. You know, we add people, we make some changes, we fine-tune the legislation.
But what we're doing now will rank right up there with the first passage of Medicare, with the first passage of Medicaid and Social Security. And then, we will--and I, you know, we were together, Congresswoman Woolsey, at the White House talking to the President, who himself recognized this isn't the be all and end all, but it's, as you said, the perfect beginning. It lays the foundation that we can work from. And I think the level of peace of mind and security that people will have--
But I wanted to make another point. You talked about how we compete in the world. And the cost of health care makes our businesses uncompetitive. The other thing it does it this locks down entrepreneurship and innovation because, you know, let's say you're a young person that has a great idea of how we're going to solve the energy crisis or how we're going to solve a health care, you know, a disease problem, wants to do great research, or a woman who wants to start her own business. But if she has a job that offers health care, she may be locked into that job as long as she can stay there. People are afraid to leave a job where health care is provided, and that is a very stifling factor.
We can liberate entrepreneurship, which is the hallmark of the American spirit, if people know they can leave their job and they'll still have access to health care.
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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I just wanted to talk a little bit about older women because, and really all seniors, but the fact of the matter is that 80 percent of people over the age of 85 are women. Fifty-seven percent of Medicare beneficiaries are women. So when you talk about aging you really are talking about mostly women. And I think it's important to note some of the amazing things that happen in this bill.
Representative Brown talked about, or maybe it was you, talked about the doughnut hole. What is that? That's a gap in coverage. You know, let me tell my example. I have a constituent who got on Medicare part D. She was told when she signed up that it was going to cover her prescription drugs. She looked over the list. One day she goes to the drug store, orders a refill of her prescription and she is told it's $120. She said, that's impossible. I paid $10 for it last month. It is impossible for it to be $120. I know. They said, no, no. You are now in this gap in coverage where you have to pay the next $3,600 out of your own pocket, and then you'll start to be covered again.
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. And that's why I did not vote for that bad bill, that doughnut, when I know so many people needed the coverage, but that was a bone that was thrown to the pharmaceuticals by the past administration, the Bush administration. That was a terrible indictment that was put on the seniors that needed the prescription drug coverage.
And I have a similar incident. I went to the drug store to pick up my mother's prescription. Well, they said it was $200. I said, okay, look again. She came back. Because I knew my mother had TRICARE. She came back, and I think it was $12 or $15. But can you imagine a senior going there, not knowing where in the world they're going to get the $200.
This is something that we are going to fix starting with this bill. This will make a difference for the seniors in this country.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. We're going to close the doughnut hole entirely over 10 years, but we're going to start right away. $250 it's going to be reduced and, for brand name drugs that are in the--
Ms. CORRINE BROWN of Florida. Formulary.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Yeah. Fifty percent reduction in price. That's going to happen right away, so there's going to be help for seniors in that regard. We will no longer charge a copayment. They won't have to pay out of their pocket for preventive services in this bill when
it's fully implemented. That means you can get a mammogram, you can get a colonoscopy. You can get a checkup. You can get preventive services without having to pay any out-of-pocket costs.
We provide more for home and community-based services so older people can stay in their homes. That's where they want to be. If they can, they don't want to have to go to a nursing home; they want to have services in their communities, in their homes.
And if they have to go to nursing homes, we improve nursing home quality. For example, we make sure that there are criminal background checks in nursing homes so that the employees will be safe for people and protect women's safety in the nursing homes.
We extend the life of Medicare for almost another decade. You know, oh, Medicaid's going to go broke. This is going to be a problem for Medicare doing this. No. The truth is, this bill will make Medicare solvent. That means that it won't go broke for yet another decade beyond its life right now.
So this bill does so much for older Americans. And yet, the other side's trying to scare the heck out of senior citizens, telling them that Medicare's going to be cut. There's not one benefit that's going to be cut under Medicare under this bill. We make Medicare better, more services, longer life, more prescription drugs. It's a great bill for older Americans, as well as younger.
Ms. WOOLSEY. And the great majority of seniors are women.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That's right.
Ms. WOOLSEY. So again, tonight, for women, senior women, all women are going to be treated much better under this health care bill. And no woman will be considered, just because she's a woman, a preexisting condition.
I want to thank my colleagues for being down here tonight, for waiting to get to this Special Order, and for knowing how important what we're doing this week is to every single American. Thank you both very, very much.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Representative Woolsey.
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