Lynn C. Woolsey: “The whole Nation desperately needs health care reform, but no group of Americans needs it more than women, women who…”

“The whole Nation desperately needs health care reform, but no group of Americans needs it more than women, women who face discrimination and insult at the hands of the broken status quo. We all know that the current system allows insurance companies to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions, but I wonder how many of my colleagues realize that, essentially, being a woman is a preexisting condition. Pregnancy, for example, or C-sections can be deemed preexisting conditions. And most unbelievably of all, insurance companies can legally turn their backs on women who have suffered injuries due to domestic violence, because that, too, can be defined as a preexisting condition. We should all be ashamed of a system that puts insurance company profits ahead of healthy American women. It's time for women to no longer be a preexisting condition. Pass the health care bill.”