[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 143 (Thursday, November 20, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6191-S6192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO JENELLE KRISHNAMOORTHY
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to pay tribute and to extend my
thanks to an extraordinary individual, Jenelle Krishnamoorthy, who has
served on my staff, with one small interruption of service, for a
decade.
Jenelle came to my staff in the summer of 2003 as a fellow, later
becoming a permanent staff member and eventually rising to lead my
health policy team on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor,
and Pensions. From the time she arrived, it was clear that Jenelle was
an exceptional talent--one possessing not just deep knowledge of health
care and public health, but also with uncommon instincts about this
institution and about how to accomplish great things in an increasingly
divided Congress.
Throughout my career, I have been guided by a conviction that our
country does not have a health care system, but rather a sick care
system. If you get sick, you get care. We spend far too much time and
riches treating disease once it has occurred, and far too little
preventing it in the first place. Among my first charges to Jenelle
when she arrived on staff was to think about how we make America a
wellness society, one in which we make the healthy choice the easy
choice. How do we, I asked her, change our workplaces, our schools, our
communities, our child care settings, and our health care system so
that we prevent the onset of chronic disease, rather than patch and fix
and treat once a person gets sick?
Jenelle responded with a broad vision of a wellness society--a vision
that has guided her work, and my own, for the past 10 years. Looking
back over those 10 years, the breadth of what she has accomplished is
truly remarkable.
The Affordable Care Act is one of the great health laws of the last
75 years. As my designee on that bill, Jenelle secured passage of a
number of groundbreaking policy changes that have changed the landscape
of our health care system. In particular, Jenelle was the primary
drafter of the prevention title of that bill. As a result of that,
every single American can now receive recommended preventive health
care services absolutely free of charge. Routine services such as
mammograms, vaccinations, diabetes and cancer screenings, among other
things, are now cost free, forever, because of Jenelle's work.
As part of that bill, Jenelle was also the intellectual force behind
the Prevention Fund, which creates a public health partnership between
the Federal Government and communities across the country by providing
billions of dollars for communities to invest in proven preventive
efforts such as tobacco cessation, childhood obesity prevention, HIV
prevention, and public health workforce development. As a result,
across the country, communities, from small towns in Iowa to our
largest urban centers, are working together to weave health promotion
into the very fabric of our communities and the lives of our citizens.
Through her work on the Affordable Care Act, Jenelle also played a
key role in expanding nutrition labeling to chain restaurants around
the country, giving hundreds of millions of consumers access to
critical nutrition information that they need to take control of their
own health, and also successfully fought for new policies to promote
breastfeeding.
Jenelle's contributions to the health of our country go far beyond
the Affordable Care Act. As the health policy director for the Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Jenelle shepherded
passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the most significant
reform of our food safety system in the country in decades. This law
strengthened the Food and Drug Administration with critical new
authorities to protect Americans by establishing a better and more
modern system for keeping our food safe from farm to fork.
And just as she did with the food safety system, Jenelle also
spearheaded efforts to improve the safety and quality of drugs and
medical devices. In successfully leading committee passage of the Food
and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act, Jenelle helped
ensure the safety of our drugs and medical devices, alleviate the
effects of drugs shortages and manufacturing problems, and implemented
long sought reform to help bring critical drugs and medical devices to
patients faster.
Remarkably, these are just the highlights of Jenelle's
accomplishments in the area of health policy and health promotion. Just
in this Congress, Jenelle has led 16 bills into law, including bills to
respond more quickly and effectively to public health disasters, to
facilitate organ donation, to provide equitable funding to children's
hospitals and ensure a steady supply of pediatric doctors, and to speed
the approval of new sunscreens to protect Americans from skin cancer.
Her efforts in the health arena in this Congress have made the HELP
Committee one of the most productive in this Congress. For making me
look good as the Chairman of the HELP Committee, I owe Jenelle a
special debt of gratitude.
Americans take for granted the safety of our food supply and our
drugs and medical equipment. When people go to their doctors and
receive a free, often lifesaving mammogram, they do not
[[Page S6192]]
think of the reasons for it. When a smoker of several decades finally
receives the help that he needs to quit so that he can watch his
grandchildren grow up, he most likely does not pause to reflect on why
he received free cessation services. But none of these things happened
accidentally. They came to pass because of the heroic and humble
efforts of a dedicated public servant, Jenelle Krishnamoorthy. For 10
years now, Jenelle has shown up for work in my office with the singular
goal of improving the health of Americans. She has succeeded beyond
measure. For that, I owe her my thanks, and so too do tens of millions
of Americans.
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