The House began debating H.R. 3962, "The Affordable Health Care for America Act," a little before 11am today. If you were watching C-SPAN, you might be wondering if it's normal for members of Congress to show such disrespect to one another by repeatedly shouting "I OBJECT" over their colleagues. You might also be wondering why Republican Congressmen are so adamantly opposed to allowing women in Congress to speak about gender discrimination in health care.

At this time, the House is engaged in determining the rules governing the debate. It was originally predicted by the Washington Post to be voted on between 10 and 11 a.m., but Republicans have risen to interrupt several Democratic Congresswomen before the Chair.

These women in Congress have risen to insert into the record a brief statement about women's health care issues - ranging from discrimination by health insurers to breast cancer research and treatment - but Republicans in Congress, like Rep. Tom Price, have repeatedly interrupted by shouting "I OBJECT, I OBJECT, I OBJECT," over their women colleagues. You really have to watch it to believe it:

Rep. Lois Capps and other women in Congress were rising to speak on issues that impact millions of American women - and how "The Affordable Health Care for America Act" will address these issues.

Today's GOP behavior follows a longer narrative of Republican disinterest in addressing gender discrimination in health care, including Sen. Kyl's remarks on why insurers shouldn't have to cover maternity care, and the introduction of the House GOP health care bill - which doesn't contain a single mention of "women" in its pages (aside from language on abortion).

Special note: when House Republicans stood up to insert their own remarks to the record, not a single Democrat objected.

A version of the Republican health care bill was leaked today, and it's underwhelming, to say the least. For starters, the draft bill completely ignores women's health care issues. In fact, there is not a single mention of "women" in the entire bill (and "woman" appears just once, in a passage about - surprise! - abortion). By comparison, The Affordable Health Care for America Act introduced by House Democrats has 101 mentions of "women" on 37 separate pages.

What are we supposed to think about all this? Are Republicans betting that insurance companies will fix the gender gap on their own? Will they magically start covering maternity care? Will they voluntarily stop treating rape and domestic violence as pre-existing conditions? Here are just a few other glaring omissions in this draft version of the GOP bill:

• Allows insurers to deny coverage due to "pre-existing conditions" (which, we've recently learned, range from underweight babies to rape and domestic violence victims)


• Allows insurers to withhold maternity coverage and follow-up visits for the baby's health


• Allows insurers to require limitless out-of-pocket costs, which have already resulted in sending millions of Americans into medical bankruptcy


• Allows insurers to continue the practice of "gender rating," whereby insurers often arbitrarily charge women up to 48% more than men for the same policies

Why We're Headed to Chicago Next Week: Read more about the largest taxpayer mobilization in Chicago next week where thousands of Americans from 20 cities will converge on the American Bankers Association (ABA) conference to demand banks stop spending millions in taxpayer dollars to lobby against reforms that would protect Americans from the next economic crisis. Want to join us?

Krugman Reminds Us Why We're Fighting Those Guys in the First Place...While giant financial institutions are paying out record bonuses and salaries, they aren't lending to small businesses or helping families that are struggling with their mortgages. Read Paul Krugman's NY Times piece, which gives a sobering report on the state of banks.

Blog about it if you must....In a study by the Sunlight Foundation's Micah Sifry, SEIU.org was counted as the most referenced site in blog posts about healthcare policy. Read the score here.

Then on techPresident, Nancy Scola highlights SEIU's new online tool + Twitter + Ads campaign ("Take a ticket for healthcare equality") to help get the word out to would-be tweeters that's time to deliver on healthcare reform that ends discrimination against women by health insurers. The campaign has generated over 5,000 tweets since yesterday.

Senators Urge Extension of Unemployment Benefits: 7,000 people every day see their are seeing their jobless benefits expiring--and it's largely due to the petty obstructionism of two Senators who are blocking the needed extension of jobless benefits. Yesterday afternoon, 14 senators from across the country joined together to urge swift passage of a UI extension.

Former SEIU Member Crowned a Ugandan King: For years, Charles Wesley Mumbere worked as a CNA in Maryland and Pennsylvania and was a member of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania. Yesterday, Mumbere returned to his native Uganda and assumed the royal crown as king of his people, the 300,000-strong Rwenzururu Kingdom. Read more about his life from teenage leader of a rebel force to impoverished student, a CNA working in the U.S. and, finally, to king of his people. Photos of his crowning here.

"The Greatest Public Demonstration in Puerto Rican History:" Photos and recap from the Puerto Rican General Strike on October 15 on SEIU's Blog here. Stand up for the civil rights of Puerto Rico's citizens by contacting your member of Congress and asking him to hold hearings on Gov. Fortuño's anti-American actions.

SEIU's Rocio Saenz Joins International Unions to Urge Reform of Mexico's Broken Labor Laws: Joining a group of international labor leaders, SEIU Vice President and President of Local 615 Rocio Saenz spoke at a press conference in Mexico City on October 14 about the urgent need to reform broken Mexican labor laws that allow multinationals to exploit Mexican workers without recourse. "We cannot address the deeper causes of global poverty and forced economic migration unless we reach across international borders and ensure that all working people have the right to decent work and a job that will support their families," said Saenz.