Political Quotes

“I rise today to reintroduce legislation with my colleague from Maryland, Senator Ben Cardin, to increase access to preventive bone density screenings and to improve osteoporosis diagnosis and treatment in the process. May is National Osteoporosis month. Approximately 54 million Americans have osteoporosis or low bone mass. Women are disproportionally affected, accounting for 71 percent of osteoporotic fractures and 75 percent of health costs related to osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is often called ``the silent disease'' because bone loss usually occurs gradually over the years without symptoms. As the NIH Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center observes, falls are especially dangerous for people who are unaware that they have low bone density. If the patient and the doctor fail to identify the link between the broken bone and osteoporosis, the chance to make a diagnosis with a bone density test and begin a treatment program may be lost. Our legislation, the Increasing Access to Osteoporosis Testing for Medicare Beneficiaries Act of 2021, tackles a proven barrier to proper screening by creating a floor reimbursement rate under Medicare for the dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) test, the ``gold standard'' for osteoporosis diagnosis.…”