Elizabeth Furse: “I supported the budget agreement, and the bill that is on the floor does not contain some of the provisions which I…”

“I supported the budget agreement, and the bill that is on the floor does not contain some of the provisions which I thought were very good and which led me to support the legislation in the Committee on Commerce. And those good provisions are, it extends preventive benefits for Medicare beneficiaries, including diabetes self-management training and blood strips, very important. It increases services and benefits in rural areas, and there is an extension here for States which are operating Medicaid demonstration projects under section 1115 waivers. However it seems to me that we live by a rule which is that a deal is a deal and fair is fair, and there are things in the bill today which were not in the budget agreement, and I do not think that they are fair for all of our citizens. One of the things it does is it sets up a two-tiered class of workers by defining that workers who receive welfare are not protected against race, sex, national origin, and religious discrimination, and that is just not fair. It undermines a woman's right to choose by taking the right to choose from poor women, those on Medicaid, and taking from them rights that other women have in this country. I do not think that is fair either. Then it fails to protect legal immigrants who may become disabled after the welfare bill was signed into law. Mr. Speaker, that is not fair either.”