Chris Murphy Hosts Area 'Women For Murphy' Round Table

Chris Murphy wants to know what women are thinking. About life, about politics. What their fears are. He wants to listen, and he wants a good cross-section of voices.

A U.S. Representative for Connecticut's fifth district, Murphy is running for Senate in 2012.

On Monday afternoon, as part of his Women for Murphy Round Table tour, Murphy invited a number of women to come to the University of Connecticut Stamford to share their thoughts on everything going on in current events. He fielded questions and conerns ranging from health care to small business ownership.

Among his visitors:

• Sharon Hobby, Stamford
• Emily Ceraga, Norwalk
• Betsy Gell, Ridgefield
• Alicia Denton, Greenwich
• Gail Fagan, Stamford
• Katherine Sanford, Greenwich
• Winnie Roberts, Stamford
• Maddy Jones, Fairfield
• Deborah Williams, Stamford
• Carolyn Vermont, Bridgeport
• Mercy Balcarcel, Stamford

They were small buisness owners and parents and students and community leaders and they all had different concerns they faced in their lives.

Murphy touched on women's health care, and how he views a woman's right to make decisions she feels are best for her body as something that is slipping.

"Given this sort of renewed attack on women's healthcare, this group was formed," Murphy said. "That conversation launches you into all sorts of other areas: What do women care about? What do families care about? What do men care about?"

A major concern, women's healthcare took up a large portion of the meeting time.

"What women find is that women pay more," he said. "Simply because they're women insurance companies rate women as higher risks than men and so being a woman essentially becomes a pre-existing condition."

Many in the group were happy the Affordable Healthcare Act was in place. Murphy said really, everyone should be happy Romney thought of this idea, one Romney so adamantly opposes from Obama now.

"I would propose you wouldn't have healthcare reform if Romney hadn't passed healthcare in Massachutesettes. It became the model for federal law," he said. "Talk about irony, which isn't a strong enough word to describe what Romney's position on health care has become."