Female lawmakers shape health care with their own stories

CQ Politics reports that Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Ohio, is one of several women lawmakers who is using her own history with multiple sclerosis to lobby for changes in the health care system: "As the health care debate rages on, [Kilroy] has decided to use her personal story to help fellow lawmakers understand how important it is to make health care available for all Americans. In a 'Dear Colleague' letter she sent last week, Kilroy told them about her own diagnosis."

Kilroy is "not the only member to see her own illness as a way to advance an agenda. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz , D-Fla., created a stir earlier this year when she announced she had been undergoing treatment for breast cancer." She introduced legislation to increase awareness of the benefits of early detection. "Though she has been less vocal on the issue of health insurance coverage, she agrees with Kilroy that fighting a serious disease — at the same time that a patient is fighting for insurance coverage — is too difficult. Both Democrats support the public insurance option" (Miller, 10/12)".

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.