On the recordMarch 18, 2010
I just want to say how proud I am to be associated with all of you tonight, because this is one issue that has gotten very little attention in this health care debate--the bald-faced discrimination against women in health care--and it's been going on forever. I just want to share a couple of stories that happened when I was serving in the California Legislature, trying to improve reproductive health for women. And it's all about our organs. It's all about our plumbing. The first issue dealt with contraceptive pills and prescription drug benefits in California. Basically, the bill said that if you were offering a prescription drug benefit, you can't discriminate against one class of drugs, and only one class of drugs was discriminated against. It was contraceptive bills. I carried the bill 1 year. It got to the Governor's desk, and he said, Oh, it's too costly. And then by the insurance industry's own estimates, they found that it was $1 per month per employee. Then we rounded a second year and a third year, and finally in the fourth year, we were successful in getting contraceptive coverage included in prescription drug benefits. But I can't take any credit for it. You know who I give credit to? Pfizer Pharmaceutical. Because in that year, they introduced VIAGRA. And guess what? Instantly VIAGRA was covered in prescription drug benefits in California, even though it was twice as costly or, depending on how many times a month you had to use it, far more costly.
