Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi traveled to New Haven on Saturday to host a panel discussion on women’s health, part of the Democrats’ last-ditch effort to market health care reform.

Joining two senior colleagues from Connecticut, Reps. Rosa DeLauro and John Larson, and Dr. Carolyn Mazure, Director of Women’s Health Research at Yale, Pelosi addressed the benefits for women in the health care reform bills under consideration in Washington.

“Women are the primary consumers of health care for their families,” Pelosi said in a statement. “They pay more for care and face greater discrimination in the insurance market. When we pass health insurance reform, unfair practices will end. Insurance abuses – against women and every American – will be a thing of the past. And being a woman will no longer be a pre-existing condition.”

In a joint statement the group criticized the insurance industry’s use of pre-existing conditions to penalize women for having a child, or being a victim of domestic violence in order to turn a profit.

“It was an honor to welcome Speaker Pelosi to New Haven,” DeLauro said, “and I applaud all that she has done in getting health care reform to this point — we are closer now to passing comprehensive reforms than we have ever been.

Later, Pelosi, accompanied by her security detail, was spotted dining at Frank and Claire Criscuolo‘s New Haven fixture, Basta Trattoria.

Correction: March 8, 2010

An earlier version of this article misreported the police agency guarding Pelosi.