EMILY's List House alums join Speaker Pelosi to promote health care reform
By Emily on 10/09/2009 @ 03:32 PM
The Democratic women of the Senate aren't the only ones stressing the importance of health care reform for women.
On the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading the way, holding a press conference earlier this week with the Democratic Women's Working Group earlier this week.
Pelosi got right to the heart of the matter, focusing on current challenges some women face when trying to get insurance coverage: "Think of this, you have survived domestic violence and now you are discriminated in the insurance market because you have a pre-existing medical condition. Well, that will all be gone under this legislation."
Here's a clip:
EMILY's List alums Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky (IL-9), Donna Edwards (MD-04), Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15), and Gwen Moore (WI-04) joined Pelosi at the conference, and each had powerful things to say about the need for reform.
Kilroy, whom EMILY's List members helped elect in 2008, spoke of her own multiple sclerosis diagnosis and current struggles facing women with chronic diseases. "The insurance industry tells us that because women are 2-3 times more likely to have multiple sclerosis, 10 times more likely to have breast cancer, because 55,000 more women than men have strokes every year, they can rate insurance based on gender. And the decisions that they are making are not only unfair or immoral. Frankly, they're bad public policy."
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