Health Care Reform
Floor Speech
HEALTH CARE REFORM -- (Senate - October 08, 2009)
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the importance of health care reform to the women of this country.
Let me tell my colleagues how I got interested in this issue. When my daughter was born, she was very sick. She couldn't swallow. She was in intensive care. They thought she had a tumor. It was a horrendous moment for our family. I was up all night in labor, up all day trying to figure out what was wrong with her, and they literally kicked me out of the hospital--my husband wheeled me out in a wheelchair after 24 hours--because at that point in our country's history, they had a rule; it was called driveby births. When a mom gave birth, she had to get kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours.
Well, I went to the legislature with a number of other moms and we said: Enough is enough. We got one of the first laws passed in the country, in the State of Minnesota, guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour hospital stay. My favorite moment of this was at the conference committee when there were a number of people who were trying to get the implementation of this bill delayed so it wouldn't take effect. I went there with six pregnant friends of mine. When the legislature said, when should this bill take effect, the pregnant women all raised their hands and said, ``now.'' That is what happened. That is what the women of America are saying today. They are saying, ``Now.'' They cannot keep having these escalating health care costs that are making it harder and harder for them to afford health care.
I always tell the people in my State to remember three numbers: 6, 12, and 24. About 10 years ago, the average family was paying $6,000 for their health insurance. Now they are paying something like $12,000, a lot of them paying even more; small businesses, even more. Ten years from now, they are going to be paying $24,000, if we don't do something to bend this cost curve.
Medicare is something that is so important for women in this country. It is going to go in the red by 2017.
One of the things that really bothers me about the current situation is this preexisting condition issue. I couldn't believe what I found out last week: In nine States and the District of Columbia, women who are victims of domestic abuse or who have been victims of domestic abuse can be denied health care coverage because domestic abuse can be considered a preexisting condition. So they get abused and then they can't even get the health care coverage to help them. Maternity, being pregnant--these things can all be preexisting conditions, and that is something we need to stop.
That is why I am so glad one of the major proposals in this reform is to do something about preexisting conditions. We also need to make sure preventive care--so important to women--things such as mammograms are covered in our health care plan.
Finally, one of the things I know the Senator from Maryland has been such a leader on is aging parents. People such as myself, we have kids of our own and then we also have aging parents. We are caught in what they call the sandwich generation: taking care of our own kids and making sure our parents get care at the same time. Predominantly, a lot of women are in this situation. That is why the CLASS Act, which Senator Kennedy proposed and which is in one of the health care proposals, which allows Americans to use pretax dollars to pay for their health insurance and their long-term care insurance is so important.
So I am glad for American women that we are moving forward on this health care reform.
Thank you very much, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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