Barbara Mikulski

I apologize for being late. It was not only the traffic, but, as you can see, I'm now looking at the health care system from the wheelchair up.

We certainly want to hear about those older women.

But these bills--the Baucus bill, for example, would cut $404 billion off Medicare with cuts in Medicare of 10 to 15 percent every year.

We know that health care is truly an American issue, where we need to be able to guarantee access.

Health reform is how we achieve universal access in a way that meets quality standards and also cost standards.

For me, health care definitely is a woman's issue.

But this ridiculous practice of charging women more for health insurance sends the message that we don't want women to receive prenatal services and high-quality maternity care.

We welcome diverse views. That's how we arrive at what we hope will be the sensible center in which we can achieve health care reform.

We also are stopping insurance companies from charging women more than men--or using preexisting conditions as a reason to deny anyone health insurance.

Access to contraception is a fundamental right of adult Americans.

And by an individual mandate, what we mean is that we will help to cover everybody, but everybody's got to participate?

We're very concerned about the changes that happened in the Finance Committee.

I do not think it's our moral and ethical framework.

Well, this was an outstanding panel and I want to thank everyone for participating and really putting a great deal of thought into it.

What I will guarantee is that this hearing from our side of the table will be conducted with the utmost of civility.

Fortunately, when we pass national health reform, we will begin a new era in women's health.

The idea that we're still allowing gender discrimination to go on when we have the power to fix it at long last is particularly disturbing.

In a small State, in an exchange, you only had two companies that were carriers in that State.

To claim that cutting Medicare by half a trillion dollars will have no impact on senior citizen benefits mocks voters and insults our intelligence.

We need health reform, but this is not the reform we have.

The most important thing we can do this year, I believe, is to make sure that no more gender discrimination occurs in our health insurance policies.

This is a critical piece of legislation of which I am a proud to be a co-sponsor.

Maryland's talented Governor Martin O'Malley wanted to spring into action to jam cell phone transmissions from prison.

All Marylanders were shocked and dismayed to hear about this new organized crime practice of using cell phones in prisons.

I introduced Senate Bill 251, the Safe Prisons Communications Act.