[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 76 (Tuesday, June 5, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          REINTRODUCTION OF THE MEDICARE WELLNESS ACT OF 2001

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                          HON. SANDER M. LEVIN

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 5, 2001

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with my colleague, Mark 
Foley, in reintroducing The Medicare Wellness Act, which would 
modernize Medicare by adding common-sense health promotion and early 
detection services to Medicare's basic benefit package and removing 
financial disincentives to use current preventative care services.
  I'm pleased that we were able to enact a few of the provisions in 
last year's Medicare Wellness Act as part of the Beneficiary 
Improvement and Protection Act, and I hope this will be the year that 
Congress finishes the job by creating a permanent, fact-based process 
for adding preventative care services to Medicare as science proves 
that they are effective.
  It doesn't make any sense that, for example, Medicare will pay to 
treat someone who has a heart attack but won't pay to prevent the heart 
attack by screening for high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol. 
The Medicare Wellness Act would rationalize the program by adding basic 
preventative services to Medicare's benefit package. It would also 
create an incentive for beneficiaries to use the services by 
eliminating cost-sharing and deductibles for preventative care 
services, just as most private insurance plans have done.
  The bill would add cholesterol screening, high blood pressure 
testing, hearing and vision testing, and expanded osteoporosis 
screening to Medicare's list of covered services. It would also add 
coverage of health promotion services like medical nutrition therapy 
for people with heart disease and smoking cessation help. It would 
allow us to test a depression screening benefit to see if by detecting 
and treating clinical depression at early stages we could head off 
debilitating physical illnesses and reduce the elderly suicide rate, 
which is higher than that of any other age group. The Wellness Act 
would eliminate the cost-sharing on existing prevention services to 
encourage more people to use them. Most importantly, it would add a 
``fast-track'' process by which Congress could regularly add those 
prevention services that were scientifically proven to be effective to 
Medicare.
  Every day, scientists discover new early detection, disease 
prevention, and health promotion tools, and those tools aren't just for 
young people--research shows that lifestyle changes can increase life 
expectancy and quality of living for people of all ages. Unfortunately, 
the Medicare program, which was created in 1965, has not kept up with 
these exciting advances in health promotion. Medicare provides state-
of-the-art care to sick people, but does little to keep them well.
  As a result, last year Medicare spent over $35 billion providing 
acute care to people with heart disease, $6 billion treating people who 
had strokes, over $5 billion treating lung disease, and $2 billion 
treating severe depression. While these expenditures can't be 
eliminated, we believe there is significant scientific evidence that 
health promotion and early detection could substantially reduce them.
  Representative Foley and I are pleased to be joined in this effort by 
our colleagues Bob Graham, Olympia Snowe, and Jim Jeffords in the other 
body. We hope Congress will move quickly to pass this bipartisan, 
bicameral bill which has been endorsed by over 20 groups ranging from 
the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association to the 
National Council on Aging.
  When you think about it, it's not surprising that The Medicare 
Wellness Act has such broad support. Better health care for seniors. 
Cost savings for Medicare. Who would oppose that?

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