Tom Harkin: “I wish to pay tribute and to extend my thanks to an extraordinary individual, Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, who has served on…”

“I wish to pay tribute and to extend my thanks to an extraordinary individual, Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, who has served on my staff, with one small interruption of service, for a decade. Jenelle came to my staff in the summer of 2003 as a fellow, later becoming a permanent staff member and eventually rising to lead my health policy team on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. From the time she arrived, it was clear that Jenelle was an exceptional talent--one possessing not just deep knowledge of health care and public health, but also with uncommon instincts about this institution and about how to accomplish great things in an increasingly divided Congress. Throughout my career, I have been guided by a conviction that our country does not have a health care system, but rather a sick care system. If you get sick, you get care. We spend far too much time and riches treating disease once it has occurred, and far too little preventing it in the first place. Among my first charges to Jenelle when she arrived on staff was to think about how we make America a wellness society, one in which we make the healthy choice the easy choice. How do we, I asked her, change our workplaces, our schools, our communities, our child care settings, and our health care system so that we prevent the onset of chronic disease, rather than patch and fix and treat once a person gets sick?…”