Janice Schakowsky: “I want to just mention another cost-effective reason that we should avoid cuts. For example, we have immunization…”

“I want to just mention another cost-effective reason that we should avoid cuts. For example, we have immunization programs that decrease our future health care costs, and let me just give you the actual dollar numbers. Every dollar we spend on the childhood vaccine series through this program saves our health care system $16.50 in future medical costs. By anybody's estimation, that's a really good return on investment, $16.50 back for every dollar that we spend on childhood vaccines. Another aspect of sequestration cuts that would really hurt everyone are the cuts for research into the health challenges facing our country. The proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health of almost $2.5 billion will cause irreparable harm to our research infrastructure and our ability to treat and cure diseases. Eliminating funding for almost 2,400 research projects will decrease our ability to identify new methods to prevent and combat health challenges such as cancer and diabetes, impede our ability to remain the world leader in biomedical research, eliminate jobs in local communities throughout this country, and hinder our ability to train and develop the future leaders of our biomedical sciences workforce. Research into costly diseases affecting mothers and babies will be especially harmed by these cuts.…”