Improving Access To Maternity Care Act

Floor Speech

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The Democratic nominee who didn't successfully win that election, but they would all come down to the same thing: we need to build our infrastructure. And indeed we do. In doing so, we are going to put people to work, lots of people to work if we do it right. Here is how you multiply the effect of infrastructure construction on the employment. There is no doubt, for every dollar we spend on infrastructure, we will grow the economy by a little more than $2, and we will put several tens of thousands of people to work if we spend a billion dollars or more. We know those statistics; they are out there, and they are true. But if you really, really want to grow this economy, and you want to bring manufacturing back to the United States, then you ought to pay attention to what we have been working on here for the last 7 years, and this is what we call the Make It In America agenda.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have given our 45th President and the 115th Congress a clear mandate to revive our economy, secure our borders, restore our Nation's sovereignty, reinstate our Bill of Rights, and uphold the rule of law. Moreover, they have given us majorities in both Houses of Congress to do so. There is no excuse for failure. President Obama and Secretary Clinton set a positive tone for this peaceful transition of power, a tone no doubt shared by many Members of Congress and many Americans of good will who did not vote on the prevailing side. This represents the best of American statesmanship.
Yet, we have also heard reactionary elements of the Democratic Party make a vicious pledge to thwart this mandate and destroy this President. One need look no further than Senator Reid's disgraceful diatribe on Friday to realize that these threats far exceed the lunatic fringe now violently rioting in our streets.They reach directly into the Halls of Congress. To fulfill the mandate of the American people, we will need to deliberate wisely and in good faith, with all sides participating in the discussion and all voices heard. But, ultimately, those deliberations must result in laws to fulfill that mandate. The agenda is daunting, and time is fleeting.
The greatest single obstacle to this era of reform is the 60-vote threshold to invoke cloture in the Senate, and I rise today to urge the Senate to finally reform it. Given the record of abuse of this rule and avowed intentions of many in that body, nothing will change legislatively unless the Senate Republican majority takes action when they organize in January. All the reforms that the American people called for, that the President will request, and that the House will pass will be stopped dead in the Senate.

Now, I don't argue to abandon this rule, but rather to restore it to its original purpose. Cloture is rooted in a sound and ancient parliamentary principle that, as long as one-third of a deliberative body wants to debate an issue, that debate should continue. After all, a minority exists to convince the majority of its way of thinking. This is the essence of deliberation. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague, the gentlewoman
from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), for yielding me the time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1209, the Improving Access to Maternity Care Act, which I am proud to have coauthored with my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).
We know that healthy women make healthy moms, and healthy moms make healthy babies. To support these women throughout their lives, they need access to preconception, prenatal, postpartum, and interpartum care--interpartum being that time between one child and the next, should there be another child. But too many communities lack the skilled maternity care professionals who are able to provide these services, and that is what this bill would address.

H.R. 1209 would harness the power of the National Health Service Corps to better target maternity care to the communities that need this care the most. Maternity care professionals are already included in the program and doing great work in communities across the country. But at present, these providers' placement is based on data related to primary care access shortages, without regard to the specific maternity care which may be needed. So while they are doing important work, there is more that we can, and should, do to ensure that they reach the areas that would benefit most from high-quality maternity care. Our bill would start this process and ensure that the National Health Service Corps takes the steps to use data to help more accurately place maternity care professionals in the locations that have the greatest need. H.R. 1209 would set up a process to identify communities in existing health professional shortage areas that most need maternity care. And then it would require action to get maternity care professionals into these targeted areas.
We know that the National Health Service Corps is one of our most effective programs which improves access to care in underserved areas. We just want to make sure that we don't leave any community behind, especially when it comes to the health of mothers and their babies.
I want to again thank my colleague, Dr. Burgess, for partnering with me on this legislation. I thank Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Pallone, and all of the staff for helping us move this bill forward. And I want to thank my deputy chief of staff and health policy advisor, Adriane Casalotti, for her years of work on this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge full support of this legislation.

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