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Improving Access to Affordable and Quality Health CareSenator Lautenberg believes every American should have access to affordable, quality health care, just like Members of Congress and federal employees get. He has been fighting to improve and expand programs that have a proven record of providing access to affordable health insurance for working families. He believes that we must reduce health care costs and has been working to focus our health care system on preventing disease rather than simply treating it. We must also move our health care system into the 21st century, and Senator Lautenberg supports shifting from paper to privacy-protected electronic medical records as an important first step. He believes insurance companies should not be permitted to deny coverage because of preexisting conditions, and supports allowing small businesses to band together to get health insurance for their employees. Focus on New Jersey Senator Lautenberg has fought to make sure New Jerseyans have access to health care and state-of-the-art facilities in our state. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he has secured millions of dollars for hospitals and mobile medical facilities in New Jersey, and research for cancer, autism, diabetes and other diseases. Senator Lautenberg successfully fought off attempts by Republican allies of President Bush to eliminate health care for thousands of New Jersey kids under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and pushed to expand the CHIP program to cover even more children in New Jersey. He also successfully fought the Bush Administration during the Medicare prescription drug debate to ensure continued access to New Jersey’s successful PAAD and Senior Gold prescription drug programs for 200,000 New Jersey seniors. And he authored legislation to eliminate the Medicare prescription drug “doughnut hole,” arguing that seniors should not have to choose between paying heating bills and paying for medication. Senator Lautenberg has been one of the strongest supporters in Congress of upholding a woman's right to choose. He has coauthored the Freedom of Choice Act to establish a federal law to codify Roe v. Wade and guarantee reproductive freedom for women. He has cosponsored bills to assure safe access to clinics, repeal the "gag rule" on federally funded family planning organizations and to ensure that women have access to affordable birth control at university-based and safety-net health care clinics. He is the author of the Responsible Education about Life (REAL) Act to provide funding for comprehensive sex education, and the Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act that would prohibit pharmacies from denying a person’s access to contraception. Senator Lautenberg has also secured funding for research on heart disease, breast cancer and other diseases through the National Institutes of Health. Senator Lautenberg wrote the law banning smoking on airplanes, protecting individuals from deadly secondhand smoke and triggering a broader smoke-free revolution, as well as a ban on smoking in federally-funded places that serve children. He is now leading the fight to prevent tobacco companies from misleading smokers into thinking that so-called “light cigarettes” are healthier than regular cigarettes. Senator Lautenberg was an original cosponsor of Family and Medical Leave, which lets people take time off work to care for sick children or parents. And he coauthored and helped secure funding for the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides health care services to more than 44,000 New Jersey HIV/AIDS patients.
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