Employee Health Care Protection Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to H.R. 3522, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage as amended.

My amendment would ensure that nothing in the underlying act would result in health care discrimination against women. It would prevent insurance companies from charging small businesses that employ women higher premiums, and it would stop insurance companies from selling group plans that deny women contraception or critical maternity care coverage.

I hope that we can all agree that women should never have to pay more for their health care than men would pay simply because of their gender. Being a woman is not and must never be treated as a preexisting condition.

Health care reform has created many new and needed consumer protections, which are helping women live healthier lives and build stronger families. Health care costs are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Allowing insurance companies to charge women more than men would hurt working women struggling to make ends meet. It would hurt families raising children who are trying to give them the healthy start they deserve.

Before this unfair practice was banned, the National Women's Law Center reported that gender discrimination in premium prices alone cost women approximately $1 billion per year more than men. That is $1 billion that could have prevented many women and their children from living in poverty or being homeless.

That is $1 billion that women and their families could have spent on rent. That is $1 billion that women and their families could have spent on child care. That is $1 billion that women and their families could have used to pay for college. That is $1 billion that women and their families could have used to start a business. That is $1 billion that could have been better used to strengthen the American economy.

In a nation where women earn only 77 cents for every dollar that men earn, charging women more for health care compounds the financial strain on women and their families. Stopping gender-based premium discrimination is just one example of health care reform that works, and it is a new consumer protection that women and their families cannot afford to lose.

My amendment will ensure that insurers continue to cover critical maternity care and contraception coverage. Until recently, many States did not require all health care plans to cover maternity care.

Today, the law requires every new insurance policy to cover maternity care. We must ensure that women continue to have access to this critical coverage and access to contraception coverage that gives many women the economic independence to succeed because when women succeed, America succeeds.

Contraception coverage ensures women can prevent unplanned pregnancies and choose the best time to start a family. When surveyed by the Guttmacher Institute, 63 percent of women said that access to contraception had enabled them to take better care of themselves and their families. Over half said they were better able to support themselves financially or complete their education.

Mr. Speaker, the majority of Americans support these policies. A Kaiser health poll found that Americans support birth control coverage by a 2 to 1 margin and 86 percent of Americans support coverage of maternity care.

A vote for my amendment is a vote to protect women from unfair discrimination. It is a vote promising our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters that they will be treated fairly and equally.

These are the values of my constituents in Ventura County, and they are the values of the American people.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the motion to recommit. Vote ``yes'' for equality for women.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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