[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 23450-23451]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE POLICY

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I wish to briefly comment on health care 
policy which we have been able to accomplish over the last several 
years.
  As most people know, for 20 years before I entered politics, I 
devoted my life to healing and to helping people one-on-one through 
medicine, and now for 12 years in the Senate I have tried to focus on 
healing and helping people using public policy.
  From the outset, I have worked hard to place medicine and health care 
at the center of our national agenda.
  I had a meeting at the White House earlier this morning. I restated 
how important it is that we address what is a coming tsunami as our 
aging population incessantly is coming toward us similar to a big tidal 
wave. It will be here in a few years.
  Health care affects our global competitiveness. It affects our $8.5 
trillion debt, our deficit, and our State budgets. It is intensely 
personal. It affects all of us in a very direct way because we are all 
sick at one time or another.
  I am very proud of the work we have been able to accomplish on the 
floor in this body on health care policy. Thanks to a new Medicare Part 
D drug benefit, millions of seniors today are receiving access to drugs 
they didn't have before--drugs that can prevent heart attack or can 
prevent a stroke or can prevent various kinds of maladies from which 
people suffer. People today who have this affordable access to drugs no 
longer have to worry about having an illness or serious illness hit 
them and being able to buy those drugs which they need to treat that 
illness.
  In that prescription drug coverage legislation which we passed, all 
Americans gained better access to health care through what we put in as 
Health Savings Accounts, accounts that you own, that you can control, 
that you can take with you.
  Over a 5-year period in this body, we had an initiative which was 
completed to double the NIH budget. That leads to new cures today and 
new therapies tomorrow.
  I am also particularly proud of this body passing the United States 
Leadership Against Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act. As 
my colleagues know, respectively, 3 million people die of the first, 2 
million of the second, and 1 million of the third of the disease I 
mentioned. Move than 5 million people die a year. These are three 
deadly infectious diseases that can be controlled.
  We took a major step forward with that $15 billion commitment. There 
is a lot more to do to address our health care system today. I am a 
great advocate of aligning our values and our incentives on results and 
outcomes. I believe in that vision of a health care system that is 
centered around a patient, or ``the patient,'' that is provider 
friendly, that is driven by three things: 21st century information; 
second, by choice; and third, driven by some element of control. A 
consumer-driven system is that vision, that model, to which we should 
all strive.
  We need to change the way we think about health care, we need to 
reign in those frivolous lawsuits. We tried again and again to do so in 
the Senate the last 4 years and have been unsuccessful. The frivolous 
lawsuits drive up the cost of your health care, my colleagues' health 
care, and the cost of health care of everyone in this country.
  We also need to address quality of health care to make sure those 
medical errors are eliminated, those needless medical errors that are 
made in our health care system today.
  I am proud of the contributions Congress has made. We have much more 
to do.
  Mr. President, when I placed my hand on the Bible and took my oath of 
office on a cold morning in 1995, I did not know many things I know 
today. But I knew with certainty that medicine would play a major role 
in my career in the Senate.
  I kept the letters M.D. beside my name in my Senate office. I kept a 
stethoscope on my desk. And I kept my mind on the work of healing--of 
helping.
  For 20 years before I entered politics, I devoted my life to helping 
people one-on-one. I performed 150 major transplants and, I hope, did a 
little to advance the science of transplantation. For 12 years in the 
Senate, I focused on the needs and interests of the people of 
Tennessee, the nation and, and around the world.
  And, throughout it, I have done my best to remember where I came 
from: medicine. At the onset of my Senate career, I began working to 
place medicine at the center of our national agenda and promote its 
role around the world. Health care, after all, affects all of us, at 
every stage of our lives. I've spent enormous time on health and I hope 
it has made a difference.
  I am proud of the work I have done to improve Medicare and preserve 
its promise to America's seniors. Thanks to the new Medicare Part D 
drug benefit, millions of American seniors will no longer have to worry 
about how they will pay for their prescriptions. Just as importantly, 
the new Part D benefit serves as a template for the future of Medicare: 
it empowers consumers and lets them choose the plan that fits their 
needs best. Most seniors have more than 20 choices, satisfaction is 
high, and costs to consumers have been less than we projected. The plan 
is a success. And we did it without having to impose price controls or 
caps that would stifle innovation and dry up the supply of new 
medicines.
  The changes we created with the historic Medicare Modernization Act 
of 2003 do not end with the drug benefit. Medicare has begun to change 
its focus as well: it includes a first-ever ``welcome to Medicare'' 
exam and new coverage for tests that will help us prevent and treat 
diseases before they become major problems. Under the same legislation, 
nearly all Americans also gained much broader access to a new type of 
health coverage--Health Savings Accounts that they own, control, and 
carry with them from job to job.
  I believe my efforts with regard to the National Institutes of Health 
embody the same forward-looking spirit that led to improvements in 
Medicare. For years, NIH's budget grew only about as fast as our 
overall economy even though medicine became an increasingly important 
economic activity. My medical colleagues told me that necessary 
research could not always find funding--and the American people made it 
clear they wanted a stronger federal commitment to medical research.
  Over a 5-year period, I helped lead a bipartisan effort to double 
NIH's budget. And it's paying off. Among other things, NIH research has 
discovered new triggers for childhood asthma, innovative new ways to 
prevent diabetes, treatments to reduce mother-to-child HIV/AIDS 
transmission, new treatments for stroke, and dozens of other innovative 
medical techniques. Thanks to NIH research, the miracle medicines of 
tomorrow have begun to arrive more quickly. NIH research has saved 
thousands of lives.
  Our efforts to improve medicine have not stopped at America's shores. 
Health care can as a currency of peace. It can provide hope. It can 
give relief. And I'm proud of the way I have worked to improve it 
around the world.
  I am particularly proud of the leadership role I played in the United 
States Leadership Against Global HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria 
Act of 2003. These three deadly infectious diseases kill over a million 
people each year in the underdeveloped world. These infectious diseases 
do the most damage to the world's health. AIDS, the World Health 
Organization reports, steals more years of healthy life than any other 
disease. TB and Malaria--although usually not fatal--do enormous damage 
to health throughout the underdeveloped world and cost some of the 
poorest countries billions of dollars. It's vital that we attack them, 
fight them, and win. And we're making progress. Water has improved, 
reducing malaria. More and more people in the underdeveloped world are 
getting anti-retrovirals to fight HIV/AIDS. Widespread education on the 
Abstain/Be Faithful/Use Condom ABC model has proven effective in 
limiting the spread of AIDS. In my own missionary work In Africa-
trips--I've taken every couple years--I have seen what these diseases 
can do--and the devastation that they

[[Page 23451]]

can cause. The result: we've slowed the progress of these diseases, and 
we've saved millions of lives.
  We still have much work ahead of us. Enormous numbers of Americans 
still lack insurance. Through the State Children's Health Insurance 
Program SCHIP and HSAs we have made it easier for some Americans to get 
health insurance. But we haven't done enough. Over the next several 
years, I hope Congress will work to change our health care system so 
all Americans have affordable, reliable health coverage.
  But simply expanding insurance coverage isn't enough. We need to 
change the way we think about health care so we focus on results and 
value for patients. Getting there isn't going to be easy. To do it, we 
need national, interoperable, privacy protected electronic medical 
records for all Americans who want them. We need to rethink the way we 
structure medical practices, and we need to do a better job monitoring 
quality.
  We also need to reign in predatory trial lawyers who stand in the way 
of the doctor-patient relationship by encouraging doctors to care more 
about avoiding liability and less about providing high quality medical 
care. Medicare and Medicaid, too, need additional and sustained reforms 
to ensure our federal programs are in line with ever-changing 
realities.
  American health care still faces enormous problems. We have 
tremendous work ahead of us. I am proud to have played a role in the 
health care reforms of the past 12 years, and I will continue to speak, 
think, and write about the vital importance of health care to our 
future as a nation. I entered this body as a physician and I will leave 
as one.

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