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Helped
Pass Into Law the Family & Medical Leave Act
Paul Wellstone helped push into law the Family and Medical
Leave Act, allowing workers to take time off with their
family without losing their job. Wellstone has worked
to expand this law by providing workers with short-term
job security in times of family or medical emergencies,
allowing them to take time off to care for a new child,
sick child, or elderly parent. Wellstone has sponsored a
measure allowing Family and Medical Leave time to address
domestic violence and its effects.
Pushing for Mental Health Parity
Paul Wellstone teamed up with Republican Senator Pete
Domenici to write the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act.
The bill established that private insurance companies could
not treat mental illness differently from other medical
illnesses. It is a simple idea: treat mental illness as
equal to other medical illnesses.
Paul
Wellstone and Republican Senator Pete Domenici have teamed-up
to build upon their 1996 success by offering the Mental
Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2002 that would ensure
greater parity in coverage of mental health benefits by
prohibiting a group health plan from treating mental health
benefits differently from medical and surgical benefits.
Helped People to Keep Their Health Insurance
Wellstone co-sponsored and voted in favor of Health Insurance
Portability Reform of 1996, which provided health care
security to an estimated 25 million Americans who move from
one job to another, who are self-employed, or who have pre-existing
medical conditions.
Passed a Real, Enforceable Patient’s
Bill of Rights
Paul Wellstone helped pass a real, enforceable Patient’s
Bill of Rights in the Senate, where it waits action
by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The
measure will put medical decisions back into the hands of
patients and doctors and take them away from bureaucrats
at the big insurance companies and HMOs.
Working to Strengthen Medicare
Paul Wellstone is working to strengthen and preserve
Medicare. Wellstone has supported increasing Medicare
reimbursement rates, which will strengthen hospital and
home health care. He is working to put a prescription drug
benefit under Medicare. Wellstone just passed a measure
allowing drugs to be re-imported from Canada to the United
States at the much cheaper Canadian price and he just recently
helped pass a bill allowing cheaper generic drugs to come
to the market, which will save consumers 100s of millions
of dollars.
Fought for Strong Nursing Home Standards
Paul Wellstone voted to maintain strong Federal nursing
home standards that were under assault by some Republican
Senators in 1995. Wellstone stood up for Minnesota’s
seniors and opposed Republican attacks on nursing home standards.
He opposed allowed states to obtain waivers that could weaken
the enforcement of nursing home standards.
Pushed
for Medical Privacy
Wellstone has supported strong Medical privacy regulations,
including the effort to protect the privacy of electronic
medical records held by health plans, health care clearinghouses,
and health care providers. This regulation limits the
use and release of private health information without consent;
restrict the disclosure of protected health information
to the minimum amount of information necessary and establish
new criminal sanctions for the improper use or disclosure
of private information.
Fighting for Quality Health Care for Children
Paul Wellstone sponsored the Children’s Health Act
of 2000, which was signed into law by President Clinton.
The groundbreaking legislation is a major step forward in
support of research, services, treatment and professional
training for some of the most significant health problems
affecting children of all ages. It includes Wellstone initiatives
such as an additional $75 million in funding for suicide
prevention programs focusing on children and adolescents,
and $4 million for national resource centers within the
juvenile justice system, focusing on those suffering from
mental illness and addiction.
Won Funding for Veterans’ Health
Care
As a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee,
Paul Wellstone helped enact the largest single increase
in veterans funding in history, a $1.7 billion increase
in 2000. An increase in funding for veterans health
care helps expand coverage by cutting the waiting period
veterans are forced to face when applying for help with
the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Provided Funding for Parkinson’s Disease Research
Wellstone coauthored and voted in favor of the Morris
K. Udall Parkinson Research Act of 1997, which authorized
$100 million for Parkinson's Disease Research. It required
the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
to award up to 10 Core Center Grants to encourage the development
of innovative multi-disciplinary research on Parkinson's
Disease. Grantees would be designated as Morris K. Udall
Research Centers for Research on Parkinson's Disease.
Passed a Bill Bringing Better Medical
Technology to Market
Paul Wellstone coauthored the FDA Reform Act of 1997, helping
write part of the new law that cut red tape for Minnesota’s
growing medical technology industry, providing faster Federal
approval of new medical devices, helping provide better
health care and creating jobs for Minnesotans.
Fought for Strong Food Safety Measures
Wellstone helped stop Republican efforts to gut food
safety initiatives and he has voted for stronger food safety
measures. Wellstone helped pass the Food Quality Protection
Act, which included special safeguards for kids and strengthened
laws governing pesticides and food safety.
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