Ben Cardin: “reserving the right to object, if I might--and, again, I appreciate Senator Grassley's comments about this Senator. I…”

“reserving the right to object, if I might--and, again, I appreciate Senator Grassley's comments about this Senator. I feel the same about Senator Grassley. He has been an incredible voice in the U.S. Senate, particularly on transparency, particularly against waste, and has taken on some of the most challenging battles here on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I have worked on this legislation now for several Congresses. My partners are Senator Crapo, Senator Cramer, Senator King. We have all worked on this bill together. And the bill is very simple. It just allows a more realistic budget window for preventive healthcare. And it is something that we have been talking about for a long time so that we don't get trapped with high upfront costs that have large savings, and we never get to the savings because CBO cannot score it under the current budget rules. The challenges that Senator Grassley is raising are not in this bill. We have worked very closely with the budget people to make sure that this bill does not contain the concerns that Senator Grassley is raising. The Senator might be raising a very legitimate concerns, but it is not this legislation that is causing it. This legislation only allows us to be able to implement in a more realistic way preventive healthcare services with legitimate cost estimates and offsets so that we can get the savings from preventive healthcare and implement preventive healthcare sooner, saving lives and dollars.…”