Janice Schakowsky: “I wanted to point out that our colleague, Representative Carolyn Maloney from New York, is head of the Joint Economic…”

“I wanted to point out that our colleague, Representative Carolyn Maloney from New York, is head of the Joint Economic Committee, which just did a study, too, on the effects of health care, the current health care problems that women face. One of the things that she mentioned, which I hadn't really thought about, is that a number of men reach the age of 65 and retire and go onto Medicare while their wives, who are often younger than they are, are then left stranded. Because many of them have been on their husbands' policies, so the husbands go into retirement, they have the coverage, and women don't. So we have this period between 50 and 65 where men and women alike are left stranded. One of the things our bill does is to create a $5 billion pool that would be available for people in those 50 to 65 years to get some help with their health care. So in addition to making sure that women can go onto the exchange.”