Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to highlight an important piece of legislation that was just voted out of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions--known by the acronym HELP. We voted out of committee today S. 2539, the Traumatic Brain Injury Reauthorization Act of 2014. Senator Hatch and I introduced S. 2539 to reauthorize existing programs to support States' efforts to help individuals live with traumatic brain injury and of course to help their families. TBIs range from mild concussions to devastating life-altering injuries that collectively represent a significant public health challenge. It is the signature injury, unfortunately, of the conflicts of the last decade, whether it is Iraq or Afghanistan. It is also an injury that occurs approximately 2.5 million times in the United States each year. Over 50,000 people die of traumatic brain injuries every year. Traumatic brain injury is implicated in nearly one-third of all injury-related deaths. Children--just imagine this number--ages 0 to 4 and teens ages 15 to 19 are at the greatest risk for traumatic brain injury. Among all children in an average year, 62,000 will sustain brain injuries that require hospitalization and 564,000 will be seen in hospital emergency rooms. Clearly, we must continue to improve our response to traumatic brain injury, which includes prevention, timely and accurate diagnosis, and treatment.…”