Chrissy Houlahan

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Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of my bipartisan and bicameral U.S. Public Health Service parity act, H.R. 2846. This bill is about keeping a promise Congress already has made to the people who serve our country. You should not have to choose between your service and your family. I know something about that choice because, when I served in the Air Force, there was a 6-month waiting list for on-base childcare, but I only had 6 weeks of personal leave after the birth of my child. It was, in many ways, a choice that I needed to make between my family and my service. If we value service and we value families, which we do, no one who raises their hand to serve this country should have to make that choice. My own experience is just one reason why I was so proud to help secure 12 weeks of paid parental leave in the past for our military servicemembers in the fiscal year 2021 NDAA. That was good for military families. It was really good for retention and, it is very, very good for readiness. However, we unintentionally left one of our uniformed services behind, the commissioned officers of the United States Public Health Service. Today, with this bill, we can fix that. More than 6,000 Public Health Service officers serve our country. They are ready to deploy wherever and whenever they are needed. They have responded to hurricanes and oil spills. They helped lead our Nation's response to COVID. They have deployed to confront infectious disease outbreaks around the world, natural disasters, and public health emergencies. They wear the uniform of our Nation. They leave their families when duty calls, and they serve alongside other uniformed services when our country needs them. However, when they become parents, right now, we don't give them the same parental leave benefits that we provide their counterparts in the armed services. There is not a very good reason-- indeed, there is no reason for that distinction. If we value their service when a hurricane strikes, when a disease spreads, or when another emergency threatens the American people, then we should value their families, too. That is the simple principle behind this bill: same commitment to service, same sacrifice, same support for their families. I am really grateful that this has been a bipartisan and bicameral effort from the very beginning. I thank Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone for bringing this legislation to the floor. I thank my Republican co-lead, Representative Bacon, and our Senate partners, Senators Duckworth and Murkowski, for working on this to get this here. The Senate has, indeed, already acted. Today, the House has the opportunity to finish the job and to ensure that every uniformed service receives the same benefits and the same basic support when its servicemembers welcome a child into their families. We ask a great deal of the men and women who serve this country, and they should never have to wonder whether serving their Nation means shortchanging their family. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the U.S. Public Health Service parity act, and I yield back the balance of my time.