Rep. Slaughter has been an avid supporter of the Stem Cell Research. She was an original cosponsor of HR 3, which passed the House on January 11th by a vote of 253-174. She also voted in favor of S 5, which passed the House on June 7th by a vote of 247-176. She has managed the rules in support of allowing consideration of this legislation and has spoken on the House Floor numerous times in support of this research.

Representative. Slaughter is proud to have supported the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, P.L. 111-148, March 23, 2010). Health care reform will dramatically improve the quality of health care services for seniors, reduce prescription drug costs, and improve access to preventative services.

Strengthening Medicare

The Patient Protection Act will improve the quality, accessibility, and solvency of Medicare. Health care reform ends out-of-pocket service charges for preventive services such as the flu vaccine, mammograms, and colonoscopy. The new law will also extend the solvency of Medicare by weeding out waste and achieving payment parity between traditional and private Medicare plans. In addition, the Patient Protection Act incentivizes provider coordination through new payment systems.

Closing the Donut Hole

The Patient Protection Act closes the donut hole, the gap in coverage under Medicare Part D that forces seniors to cover drug costs out-of-pocket. Seniors who reach the donut hole in 2010 will receive a $250 check to cover drug costs. In 2011, a 50% discount will be provided by drug companies. By the end of the decade the donut hole will close completely. An estimated 9,000 seniors in my district will save an average of $700 in 2011 and more than $3,000 in 2020.

Helping Early Retirees by Helping Employers

Many people retire before the age of 65, forcing them to buy expensive insurance plans or go without coverage before Medicare benefits begin. Employers sometimes fill this gap but many companies can’t afford this expense. Over the past 20 years the number of employers providing plans to retirees has fallen drastically – from 66% in 1988 to just 31% in 2008. Health care reform provides $5 billion in financial assistance to employers to help them maintain coverage for early retirees 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare. Beginning on June 21 of this year, this temporary program will fill the gap before the health insurance exchanges are established in 2014.

Helping older adults to access long-term care and home care

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act established a national voluntary insurance program for working individuals to help them pay for home care and other services. This program will help participants to stay in their homes.

Representative Slaughter’s Work on Prescription Drug Costs

Representative Slaughter is a long-time champion for seniors and working families who are struggling to pay for prescription drugs. In 2003, Rep. Slaughter opposed the Medicare Modernization Act, including the prescription drug plan, as it failed to provide meaningful relief for seniors, while providing excessive benefits to drug companies.  From the "donut hole" provision that required seniors to pay significant out of pocket costs, to the restrictions placed on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) so they could not negotiate lower price drugs for our seniors, the Medicare Part D plan has been a debacle since its conception.  Health care reform will correct many of these problems. During the 111^th Congress, Rep. Slaughter against legislation that would have increased Medicare Part B premiums; she also sponsored legislation to provide needed relief to seniors as there was no Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) in 2010.

Rep. Slaughter has long supported efforts to provide all seniors with a prescription drug benefit through the Medicare program. In order to focus public attention on this problem, Rep. Slaughter saw off a group of her constituents as they traveled to Montreal, Canada to purchase their prescriptions at dramatically lower prices in 2000.  In the following years, she released three separate reports showing that local seniors and individuals without health insurance paid significantly higher prices for prescription medication than pharmaceutical companies' most favored customers.

Rep. Slaughter also supported the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) when it passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 355- 59 on Jul 15, 2008. MIPPPA amended titles XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act to extend expiring provisions under the Medicare Program, to improve access to preventive and mental health services, to enhance low-income benefit programs, and to maintain access to care in rural areas, including pharmacy access, and for other purposes.

Rep. Slaughter shares the growing concern that hormone disrupting pollutants in our environment may explain the rise in occurrences of childhood cancers, testicular cancer, juvenile diabetes, thyroid disorders, learning disabilities, cognitive impairments and autoimmune disorders over the past 30 years. Despite the progress made in understanding the link between these chemicals and hormone disruption, further research is still needed. Rep. Slaughter believes that investing in research today could prevent and treat a broad range of diseases and disorders in future generations. During the 111^th Congress, Rep. Slaughter reintroduced The Environmental Hormone Disruption Act and the Women’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Act.

H.R. 4160, the Environmental Hormone Disruption Research Act authorizes the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to establish a comprehensive program to better understand the impact of hormone disrupting pollutants in the environment on the health of women and children.

H.R. 4161, the Women's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Act authorizes the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to provide grants to up to 6 multidisciplinary research centers regarding environmental factors that affect women’s health, and the health of their offspring.

During the 111^th Congress, Rep. Slaughter was also an original co-sponsor of Speaker Pelosi’s legislation, H.R. 3426, Coordinated Environmental Public Health Network Act of 2009, which will amend the Public Health Service Act to require the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish and operate a Coordinated Environmental Public Health Network to provide for public access to an electronic national database on the incidence and prevalence of priority chronic conditions and health effects and relevant environmental and other factors and provide support to states and territories in carrying out this work.

In July 2005, Rep. Slaughter joined researchers from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to publicize a shocking study documenting the degree of chemical pollution present in the bodies of newborn infants. The EWG investigation tested blood from ten newborn infants for a range of chemical pollutants, many of which are associated with abnormal development and poor health. On average, the infants had over 200 industrial chemicals in their blood.

Rep. Slaughter's blood was also tested, and was revealed to contain 271 harmful substances.  For over three decades, the U.S. had seen a steep rise in the occurrence of numerous diseases and disorders impacting the minds and bodies of our children.  At the same time, more than 80,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our environment since the 1950s.  While the evidence is mounting that there is an association between these chemicals and hormone disruption, research remains limited, particularly on the chemicals’ impact on women. Increased investments in research now could prevent and treat a broad range of diseases and disorders in future generations. The Environmental Hormone Disruption Act authorizes the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to conduct a comprehensive program to research and educate the public on the health effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals.  The Women’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Act will authorize the NIEHS to establish multidisciplinary research centers to investigate how environmental factors may be related to women’s health and disease prevention.

As a champion of women’s rights, Rep. Slaughter has worked to promote women’s health throughout her career in Congress. Her work has covered a wide range of issues, from breast cancer research to genetic non-discrimination, and from reproductive health to women in science.

• Congresswoman Slaughter’s Record of Championing Women’s Health

• Congresswoman Slaughter’s Current Work in the 111^th Congress

• How Health Care Reform will Help Women

As a member of the House Budget Committee in the early 1990s, Rep. Slaughter was responsible for securing passage of the first $500 million dedicated to breast cancer research, as well as substantial increases in following years. She sponsored the first legislation dedicated to increasing education and research on diethylstilbestrol, or DES, an anti-miscarriage drug prescribed until 1971 that has had serious health consequences for many of the children exposed in utero.

More recently, Representative Slaughter was proud to play a leadership role in the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Act, also called health care reform.  Health care reform will make a real difference for American women. For example, the Patient Protection Act will make it illegal for insurance companies to charge women more than men for the same coverage when health reform is fully implemented in 2014. Until health care reform was passed, women were charged up to 48% more in the individual market than men. This insurance company practice – called gender-rating – will end, thanks to health care reform. To read more on how health care reform will impact women, please click here.

In addition to the Patient Protection Act, Rep. Slaughter has introduced several important bills to protect women’s health, including H.R. 463, the Prevention First Act, and H.R. 4161, the Women’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Act.

Rep. Slaughter has received a number of awards recognizing her work as a leader on women’s health issues, including:

• The Society for Women's Health Research achievement award for dedication to women's health
• The American Public Health Association Distinguished Public Health Legislator Award
• The International Health Awareness Network honor for "lifelong commitment to women's equality"
• The National Breast Cancer Coalition award for recognition of leadership in the fight against breast cancer.

Congresswoman Slaughter’s Record of Championing Women’s Health

Representative Slaughter’s work on women’s health spans more than three decades.

After DES (an anti-miscarriage drug) was discovered to have devastating health consequences to mothers and their children exposed in utero, Rep. Slaughter fought for The DES Education and Research Amendments of 1993. This legislation provided for public health education, health professional training, and additional research on the long-term health effects of exposure to the drug DES. She also authored follow-up legislation to extend and expand these programs. The DES Education and Research Amendments of 1997 was passed and signed into law by President Clinton in October 1998.

Representative Slaughter is deeply committed to environmental health.  In 1995, Rep. Slaughter sponsored legislation requiring a review of all federal programs that assess or mitigate the risks to women's health from environmental exposures, and for a study of the research needs of the federal government relating to such risks. Similar language was included in pesticides reform legislation that passed Congress and became law in September 1996.

Cancer research and screening is one of Rep. Slaughter’s top priorities. During the 105^th Congress, Rep. Slaughter brought attention to colorectal cancer, stressing the need for prevention education and awareness. She led efforts requiring insurance companies to cover screening tests for colorectal cancer, in part because too many women were unaware that colorectal cancer strikes women and men with equal frequency. In order to lead public education and awareness efforts, Rep. Slaughter requested the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issue a report on colorectal cancer in 1997. As a result of that report, she called on HHS to launch a new public awareness campaign on colorectal cancer. This language was included in the 1998 omnibus appropriations package and the campaign was launched in March 1999.

Congresswoman Slaughter also secured passage of the Eating Disorders Information and Education Act, as a part of the 1998 funding legislation for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. Information on eating disorders is now included in prominent federal health education campaigns such as healthfinder.gov, the National Women's Health Information Center, and GirlPower! Rep. Slaughter followed up by urging the Federal Trade Commission to establish consistent regulations for advertising in the commercial weight loss industry in order to reduce deceptive claims.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) has been a long-standing concern of Representative Slaughter. She requested a report from the Department of Health and Human Services on the continuing prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States in an attempt to find the best ways to discourage this practice. Rep. Slaughter was also responsible for the passage of legislative language directing the Department of Health and Human Services to continue and intensify its efforts to educate immigrant communities in the U.S. about the health dangers posed by this practice.

In the 109^th Congress, Rep. Slaughter joined her colleagues in calling on the FDA to approve the HPV vaccine, which protects women against cervical cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cervical cancer strikes about 12,000 women in the United States each year, and 4,000 die from the disease. The primary cause of cervical cancer is certain high-risk strains of the Human papillomavirus (HPV). FDA approved the first HPV vaccine in 2006. This vaccine targets cervical cancers associated with HPV, is highly effective, and could prevent the development of a disease that causes 12 percent of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Even more promising is that fact that this vaccine can be administered to both females and males to prevent the disease.

Congresswoman Slaughter’s Work in the 111^th Congress

In the 111^th Congress, Rep. Slaughter has championed women’s health through the passage of health care reform as well as leading significant legislative efforts on environmental health, reproductive health, and public health.

How Healthcare Reform will Help Women

The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) on March 23, 2010 was a special victory for women.

• Ends pre-existing condition discrimination: The Act will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage or charging more to women who have a “pre-existing condition,” which in some cases can include pregnancy, C-section, or domestic violence.  Pre-existing condition discrimination will end for children this year, and will end for all Americans in 2014 when health care reform is fully implemented.

• Ends gender-rating: The Act will keep insurance companies from “gender rating,” the practice of charging women more than men for the same coverage.  Until health care reform was passed, women were charged up to 48% more in the individual market than men. This insurance company practice – called gender-rating – will end in 2014, thanks to health care reform.

• Access to preventive services: Health care reform eliminates co-pays and deductibles for preventive services in Medicare and in new private plans. This will help women to access services like mammograms and well-baby care.

• Access to maternity services: Currently, 79 percent of women who purchased insurance in the individual market do not have maternity coverage.  Health care reform will include maternity services in the essential benefits package of Health Insurance Exchanges.

Women’s health legislation led by Congresswoman Slaughter

In addition to Congresswoman Slaughter’s strong support for the Patient Protection Act, she has championed a series of environmental health, reproductive health, and public health bills. Below are a selection of her women’s health legislation.

H.R. 463, the Prevention First Act, will improve access to women’s health care, reduce the rate of unintended pregnancy and reduce abortions – all while saving scarce public health dollars.   The approximately 3 million unplanned pregnancies that occur each year are a reminder that we must work to improve access to comprehensive sexual education and to family planning.

H.R. 4160, the Environmental Hormone Disruption Research Act authorizes the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to establish a comprehensive program to better understand the impact of hormone disrupting pollutants in the environment on the health of women and children.

H.R. 1549, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, addresses the public health crisis caused by the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  Almost two million Americans will develop bacterial infections while in the hospital annually, and 90,000 of them will die. Antibiotic resistance is a serious public health concern that impacts women and their families. For example, antibiotic resistance has made Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) increasingly difficult to treat. The CDC, FDA, and many other governmental agencies have concluded that the use of antibiotics in healthy animals has led to the development and spread of antibiotic-resistant infections in humans. For these reasons, Representative Slaughter has introduced legislation that would phase out the use of seven classes of antibiotics on healthy farm animals to reduce the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and to protect the strength of antibiotics in treating human illness.

H.R. 4161, the Women’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Act authorizes the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) to establish multidisciplinary research centers to investigate how synthetic chemicals and other environmental factors contribute to hormone disruption and increased incidents of disease, especially among women. Increased investments in research now could prevent and treat a broad range of diseases and disorders in future generations.

Funding for International Family Planning and Reproductive Health Services

Rep. Slaughter has also fought to extend reproductive health services abroad to those most in need. More than half a million women die from pregnancy-related causes and childbirth complications each year. The vast majority of these preventable deaths occur in the poorest countries in the world where there are limited services to promote safe motherhood and a lack of basic health infrastructure. Congresswoman Slaughter authored a letter requesting an increase in funding for international family planning and reproductive health assistance in the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2011. This increase will help to reverse a decade of inadequate funding and support the health and well-being of women, children and families across the globe. 

Congresswoman Slaughter played a crucial role in negotiating to make sure the following provisions were included in the Consumer Product Safety Act.:

• Mandatory standards for testing toys for potential hazards without undercutting the authority of the states to monitor these standards;
• Ban any specific phthalate implicated by sound scientific evidence that suggest harmful effects to children; and
• Establish strong safety standards for all terrain vehicles (ATVs), including both domestic and imported models.

As a scientist, Rep. Slaughter is committed to working on our nation’s public health and environmental problems. Lead poisoning still impacts approximately 250,000 children in the United States every year. Repeated studies have linked lead poisoning with developmental delays, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), IQ reductions, hearing loss, sight problems, and other chronic health conditions.

Rep. Slaughter has a long legacy of work to end childhood lead poisoning and improve the health and safety of housing nationwide. During this Congress, Rep. Slaughter has fought for lead prevention and healthy housing initiatives at the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), at the Department for Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  On March 19, 2010, Rep. Slaughter led two letters to the House Appropriations committee, urging sufficient funding for lead and healthy housing efforts in the HUD and CDC budgets. These letters helped to maintain funding in a difficult fiscal climate.

Eliminating lead poisoning is one of the nation’s top environmental health priorities, and Rep. Slaughter believes that Congress must finish the task.

UPDATE: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also required the creation of an informative webiste for consumers, which is now available at http://www.healthcare.gov/.

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law historic health care legislation. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will make health care affordable for the middle class, provide security for seniors, and guarantee access to health insurance for the uninsured - while reducing the federal deficit by billions of dollars.