Blumenthal Fights for Veteran and Women's Healthcare

Connecticut's junior Sen. Richard Blumenthal had a full-house when he spoke at a New Canaan League of Women Voters luncheon covering a wide range of topics, from women's health to veterans' benefits.

Blumenthal began his discussion at the Country Club of New Canaan on Wednesday, with his thoughts on women’s health, offering a short and concise idea of where he stands on this issue.

“Part of what I have been doing is stopping bad things from happening. It makes no sense to defund Planned Parenthood,” he said.

A good part of the room applauded, agreeing with the senator’s statement.

“First of all, on the issue of abortion, only a small part of the work Planned Parenthood is doing is abortions. They provide cancer screenings and prenatal care,” he said.

With hospitals, Medicaid and Medicare on the minds of many, Blumenthal brought up the efforts of all three.

“We ought to be very proud of the hospitals in Connecticut,” he stated. "Medicaid is working to ease up on pressure in emergency rooms; I think that it will be a continuing effort in this area.”

With one-fourth of births in Connecticut funded by Medicaid, Blumenthal said government needs to make more of an effort to make both the experience of patients and hospitals easier. One of the hindrances he sees in making healthcare more accessible comes from the Consumer Financial Product Commission.

“Essentially, for opponents of Consumer Protection, coming forward is to rob and reduce funding,” said Blumenthal, a Greenwich Democrat.

Senator Blumenthal on Veterans

Blumenthal spoke passionately on the state of United States military veterans.

“This country is failing its veterans,” he stated. “Tonight about 100,000 United States veterans will be homeless. One in four veterans in their twenties are unemployed, that’s double the rate of their peers. You are double as likely to be unemployed if you serve this country."

Blumenthal, who is on the Armed Services Committee, has proposed a bill called Honoring All Veterans.

“This bill, I think, is really important,” Blumenthal said. “This is a bi-partisan issue that this country has an obligation to keep.”

Questions and Answers

After his prepared remarks, the League of Women Voters provided a list of questions for Blumenthal. One question pertained to his efforts to interact with other members of government and the way he goes about it.

“There’s no sort of set procedure,” he said. “We talk frequently; I will see all of our congress men and women each weekend because we all come home. There is a school of thought that government worked better when people in my position couldn’t go home on the weekends. [Government officials and representatives] used to be captives in Washington,” he joked. “There’s nothing like a social relationship to soften the edges.”

Last Tuesday’s debt ceiling outcome was on the list next.

“I believe we do need to raise the debt ceiling, but also cut spending,” Blumenthal said. “We need to do it together. I believe there will be tough negotiations. We need to cut healthcare costs, we need to go after wasteful and unnecessary spending. There are millions, even billions of dollars that we have failed to recover. “

With Medicare stating it would not be able to satisfy its obligations by 2024, Blumenthal said action needs to be taken immediately.

“Reducing healthcare costs has to be done,” he told the group. “We need to eliminate waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

Other efforts that Blumenthal thinks would be beneficial to Connecticut are the continued manufacturing of submarines in Connecticut, continued fuel cell usage due to the fact that Connecticut is the fuel cell capital of the United States, and a potential energy policy put in place by the government.

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