Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I rise to express my strong support for the Prevention and Public Health Fund and to ask my colleagues to reconsider the elimination of a program whose sole purpose is not only to improve the overall health of Americans, but to help ``restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs.'' If my colleagues across the aisle want to effectively cut spending and fix our long-term deficit, then I would remind them that health care costs are one of the biggest drivers of federal spending; and chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, account for 75 percent of the cost of care. If we invest in preventing these chronic diseases now, we could save our health care system hundreds of billions of dollars, reducing the costs to Medicare and Medicaid and saving countless lives. Instead, we are taking a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach by considering H.R. 1217, which repeals investments in prevention and primary care services to combat mental illness, obesity, cancer, as well as HIV and other acquired infections. Rhode Island has already received over $800,000 to support primary care, mental health services and health information technology that will improve the health of Rhode Island families before they are forced to seek treatment in the Emergency Department. Our nation cannot afford to cut now and worry about the consequences later.…”