Political Quotes

“Today the Foreign Operations Subcommittee held its third hearing on global health since 1997. Our first hearing was the first of its kind in the Congress, when we highlighted how disease outbreaks and impoverished public health systems half a world away directly threaten Americans. Since then, the interest in these issues in the Congress, the Administration, the media and the public has skyrocketed. Today, there are about a dozen pieces of legislation pending which deal with some aspect of global health, the President has proposed major increases in funding and policy initiatives to encourage the pharmaceutical companies to invest in new vaccines against HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, and other major killers, and the World Health Organization is setting the pace for us all to tackle these challenges with new energy and new resources. This sea change is a reflection of the magnitude of the challenges and opportunities, as well as a recognition of the essential role the United States must play in global health. In America, each year we spend over $4,000 per person on health care. In the countries where 2 billion of the world's people live in desperate poverty, only $3 to $5 per person per year is spent on health care. It would cost just $15 per person per year to address most of the urgent health needs of those 2 billion people.”