[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 12 (Monday, January 23, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H563-H564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ACA'S IMPACT ON HUNGER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, this Republican leadership 
brought to the floor a budget resolution that paves the way toward 
repealing the Affordable Care Act and taking health care away from 
millions and millions of American families.
  Repealing the Affordable Care Act would cause over 30 million 
Americans to lose coverage, and millions to see an increase in 
healthcare costs. It would deny those with preexisting conditions 
access to quality health insurance. It would do away with Medicaid 
expansion, which is working to cover the most vulnerable people in 31 
States and the District of Columbia, and would once again put insurance 
companies back in charge of our health care.
  Repealing the Affordable Care Act would also have a detrimental 
effect on efforts to end hunger in our communities. Not only do we have 
a moral imperative to address food insecurity, but we have a financial 
incentive as well. Health costs attributable to hunger have been 
estimated at $160 billion annually.
  As Catherine D'Amato, president and CEO of The Greater Boston Food 
Bank, pointed out in a recent piece in The Boston Globe, the community 
health needs assessments now required by the Affordable Care Act have 
led health centers across the country--from Massachusetts to Oregon--to 
develop partnerships with local food banks to address the food 
insecurity revealed in their assessments.
  I am proud that Massachusetts has been a leader in addressing food 
insecurity and in treating hunger as the public health issue it is. 
Across the Commonwealth, health centers have used the community health 
needs assessment to identify challenges in accessing healthy foods for 
vulnerable populations.
  UMass Memorial Medical Center, located in my hometown of Worcester, 
has identified access to healthy food as a community health need in its 
two most recent community health needs assessments.
  In response to the findings, UMass Memorial worked with the city of 
Worcester and the Regional Environmental Council to establish an urban 
agricultural program within an underserved area of the city. The 
program employs kids from the neighborhood and teaches them how to grow 
produce.
  The Veggie Mobile farmers' market then distributes the local produce 
to neighbors in food deserts across the city. Residents using SNAP 
dollars are given extra incentive to purchase the nutritious vegetables 
from these sites in the form of ``double up bucks''--they receive $2 
worth of produce for every dollar spent.
  The assessments have also led to the creation of another community 
garden project within a public housing development, and the creation of 
a backyard gardening program that teaches local residents how to grow 
food and eat healthy.
  The Worcester County Food Bank has worked to sustain and expand these 
urban agriculture and anti-hunger measures in the city of Worcester, 
and has formed the Worcester Food Policy Council to support these 
efforts.
  In western Massachusetts, the community health needs assessment is 
having similar results. A 2013 community health needs assessment 
conducted by Holyoke Medical Center identified uncertainty in food 
access and the presence of food deserts as two priority areas that need 
to be addressed to improve community health.
  In response to these findings and in recognition that hunger is a 
serious health challenge among residents in western Massachusetts, two 
dozen organizations formed the region's Task Force to End Hunger.
  Out of this effort came a collaboration between The Food Bank of 
Western Massachusetts, Holyoke Health Center, and other stakeholders to 
establish an innovative pilot that will connect food-insecure pediatric 
patients and their families with nutrition and other social services. 
The Holyoke Health Center will institute pediatric food insecurity 
screenings, and hungry families will be referred to the food bank for 
food assistance, including connections to food pantries and meal sites 
in their neighborhoods, nutrition

[[Page H564]]

education, and for help in applying for SNAP benefits.
  These families will also be referred to specific social service 
providers for other resources like stable housing, financial literacy, 
employment services, and much more.
  In the Boston area, as Ms. D'Amato pointed out in The Boston Globe, 
The Greater Boston Food Bank is partnering with community health 
centers to screen for food insecurity in their patients, provide 
toolkits of available food assistance and resources for families, and 
operate free mobile markets that distribute fresh fruits and vegetables 
to hundreds and hundreds of people a month.
  The community health needs assessment, which came out of the 
Affordable Care Act, has required collaboration among public health 
experts and other stakeholders to identify the health challenges of 
communities across our country. It has forced these groups to look 
holistically at measures that can be taken to address the most pressing 
health issues facing families in these areas. It is just one example of 
the positive impact the Affordable Care Act is having on our 
constituents.
  Mr. Speaker, if we repeal the Affordable Care Act, as my Republican 
colleagues are trying to do, there is no guarantee that these 
innovations and collaborations will continue. We need to focus on 
ending hunger now.

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