May 8, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 76 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session
All in Senate sectionPrev38 of 81Next
Women's Healthcare (Executive Calendar); Congressional Record Vol. 165, No. 76
(Senate - May 08, 2019)
Text available as:
Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Pages S2724-S2725] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] Women's Healthcare Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, back in 1876, Ann Reeves Jarvis was teaching her Sunday school class about notable mothers in the Bible. She ended that class with this prayer: I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother's day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it. That was the prayer of Ann Reeves Jarvis. Her 12-year-old daughter Anna, who was then a student in the class, took that prayer to heart and went on to help establish Mother's Day in the United States in 1914. As we approach Mother's Day this upcoming Sunday, I am gathered with many of my Senate colleagues to urge our Republican friends here in the Senate to reject many of the policies coming down from the Trump administration that put women's health and well-being at risk. Americans need access to family planning services. An investment in family planning is money well spent because it helps families cope with reproductive health planning and can help prevent health crises. This is a win-win for those who receive these services and for all Americans who, in the long run, must pay for health services that are the inevitable result of neglect and failure to provide resources for family planning. While the Trump administration would have you believe that their efforts are solely focused on eliminating access to abortion, the reality is their actions are harmful to a broad array of family planning services. For example, just in 2017, the administration tried to eliminate the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants more than a year early. I want to point out that the city of Baltimore had one of those grants, and with the help of programming from the Teen Pregnancy and Prevention Program, Baltimore saw a 61-percent drop in teen pregnancy between the years 2000 and 2016. The good news is that the city of Baltimore and other grantees prevailed in Federal court, so that money was restored. We now see repeated steps by the Trump administration through its recent title X Federal rulemaking that represent another attempt to restrict access to quality, affordable reproductive healthcare and prevent women from receiving the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves about their healthcare. It would jeopardize the entire title X health network. Specifically, the rule would block the availability of Federal funds to family planning providers, even if those family planning providers separately offer access to abortion services. In other words, despite the fact that Federal law is already crystal clear about no public funds being used to pay for abortion, the administration policy would ignore that reality. Under the status quo, title X-funded clinics that provide abortion must keep those services financially separate from their title X activities. So this rule would interfere with the ability of women throughout America to get that unbiased family planning service and counseling. The rule would specifically prohibit any referral for abortion services and end the longstanding guarantee that pregnant title X patients receive comprehensive, unbiased counseling. A primary goal of this regulation--and there has been no secret about this--is to prevent Federal funds from going to comprehensive family planning providers, like Planned Parenthood, with little or no regard for the impact this has on women throughout the country--and men and families. In fact, Planned Parenthood provides health services to 4 in 10 women in America. For many women and men, Planned Parenthood is the only source of care in their community. I want to recount a couple of stories I have received from my Maryland constituents. One is from Caitlyn. She lives in Severna Park. She shared with me the impact that Planned Parenthood had in her life. She says that while growing up, she did not have a basic education when it came to reproductive health services and options. She writes: I knew I wasn't getting the whole story and I decided [to] do my own research. Planned Parenthood had the answers to my questions with no agenda, just facts. She went on to share a different firsthand experience she had with Planned Parenthood as a patient. I needed services that were quick, affordable, and compassionate, and that's exactly what I received. When it came time to pay my bill, I was surprised to find that they just asked for a small donation. This donation-for-services is possible through Title X. Because of Title X, patients like me and more than 30,000 other Marylanders can access care, no matter what, regardless of our ability to pay. That was Caitlyn. I also heard from Tamara from Takoma Park, MD. She moved back to Maryland to care for her aging mother and accepted her dream job. Her dream job was directing a training and education fund for healthcare workers. She hesitated to accept her dream job because the employer- provided insurance plan was grandfathered into pre-Affordable Care Act regulations, meaning that her preferred form of birth control wasn't covered. Her prescription would cost her $125 a month, something she could not afford. Through her local Planned Parenthood, she was able to get the prescription for $20 a month. She wrote to me saying: Without my local Title X-funded community clinic, I--a graduate of Wellesley College, a Master's Degree holder, an engaged community member, a daughter, a passionate person on a meaningful career path--would be unable to afford my prescription, leaving me in the uncomfortable and, quite frankly, unfair position of having to choose between my health or quality of life. If you look at these stories, you will find that the proposed regulations coming down from the Trump administration prioritize ideology over patient health and safety and fiction over healthcare facts. So that is something about title X. I want to say a word about the Affordable Care Act, as well, and the important protections it provides for people throughout our country, but I want to focus for a minute on the protections it provides to women. It became the law of the land 9 years ago. I don't think any of us expected we would still be fighting as hard as we are to try to protect those essential healthcare protections. Despite the failure in this body and this Senate just last year to overturn the Affordable Care Act, we still see a constant effort from the administration, both through nonstop, harmful, regulatory efforts and a wholesale effort through the Federal courts. So I think it is important to remind all of us about what the consequences of stripping away all those protections would be. With respect to women's healthcare, it would do away with the provision that requires coverage of maternity care as an essential health benefit. It would reverse the provisions that ended gender discrimination, which previously allowed insurance companies to charge women higher premiums than men for their healthcare. It also would eliminate the requirement to provide coverage for preventive health services [[Page S2725]] like mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, and regular well-baby and well-child visits with no cost-sharing. So it is important, as we look at the ongoing efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in pieces or get rid of it wholesale, that the consequences of getting rid of that for women's health would be devastating. I heard from a constituent at that time; her name was Pamela. She had aged off her parents' insurance in college and became uninsured and, therefore, put off her medical care until she ended up in the emergency room, had to declare bankruptcy to get out from under her medical bills. She wrote me during that debate over the Affordable Care Act, as follows: Today my asthma medicine is covered with a nominal copay. I can see my doctor before a case of bronchitis becomes something worse, and I do not need to go to the ER for treatment. Now I have a twenty year old in college who has pre-existing conditions, unlike me she is still covered under our health insurance and her prescriptions are affordable. What happens to me, my daughter, and my husband who all have pre-existing conditions if our insurance is allowed to go back to the old days of charging more for our coverage? What happens to my daughter if she can no longer be on our policy? Like many of us, I have other stories I have received from Marylanders who are either worried about losing their access to healthcare through title X or worried about losing coverage under the Affordable Care Act. I hope, as we reflect on all of the challenges we are facing and as we honor mothers on Mother's Day, we don't support actions that would actually degrade their access to important quality healthcare. I will close by urging my colleagues to reflect on the words of Ann Reeves Jarvis, who I mentioned earlier was the one who had uttered that prayer that led to the establishment of Mother's Day. What she also said was that we need to honor the ``matchless service'' that mothers and other women in this country ``render to humanity in every field of life.'' I believe it is our obligation to make sure we provide access to quality healthcare and choices for all of our constituents and for every American. As we reflect on Mother's Day, be very aware of the impact our actions will have on women throughout the United States. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
All in Senate sectionPrev38 of 81Next