Tom Harkin

I have been thinking.

I have got a new idea. That is to marry the public health system with our community health centers.

I think that is a great point because the cases I mentioned that I know I have in my head are all primary care doctors...

What we are trying to do, and I think you will see immediately in this stimulus package--by the way, a significant increase in funding for the National Health Service Corps.

I urge you to increase stable funding and incentives for both community-based programs and clinical preventive services.

I think there are a lot of synergies there that I think could be very beneficial.

You have got to get these kids early on.

We have to focus on the mental health conditions again of our kids in schools and how by getting to that early on, ... you can solve a lot of our physical ailments in this country.

We can really make prevention and wellness the centerpiece of our health care reform, so people in America start thinking about it.

I lost that amendment. We're up in 2010 and I'm not going to lose it this time.

We've got to start thinking about that also; and fruits and vegetables in schools, which I've been pushing.

It ought to be easy. It ought to be one of the easiest things you do--to eat healthy, work healthy, play healthy, be healthy.

No matter how hard you try--you really have to try hard to be healthy in this country.

We have to reauthorize the child nutrition bill--that's the school lunch, the school breakfast, the WIC program--this year in the Agriculture Committee.

As a nation, we are faced with the daunting task of stabilizing and reversing this costly epidemic.

The final push for reform must come from the Federal Government.

It's time to make them the centerpiece of that conversation, not an asterisk, not a footnote, but the centerpiece of health care reform.

I tried in the last transportation bill, I offered an amendment that said that any entity that gets Federal money through transportation for streets and roads and things like that had to incorporate in their planning and architecture bike…

It seems to me that that's something we ought to be looking at CDCP to be doing.

Congress is poised to act.

In America we have a sick care system.

Prevention played a role in Iowa's reform.

We are very grateful to Senator Harkin for his leadership and foresight in working to change the focus of our system from 'a sick care system to a health care system.'

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will come to order.

Iowans and all Americans may be able to find health care security.