[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 19665]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                     PAYING FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

  (Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, today, I want to talk about something 
everyone, Republicans and Democrats, cares about: paying for health 
care reform.
  There is so much evidence that prevention at the individual and 
community levels will produce hundreds of billions of dollars of 
savings. Trust for America's Health has shown, based on existing 
community prevention programs, that we could get a return of 5.6 to 6.2 
times on every dollar spent. Private industry has also shown a similar 
savings in less than 10 years. Another report will show that we would 
save $652 billion over 10 years by getting healthier individuals to 
Medicare and by reducing advancing disease when they enter the system. 
This kind of prevention is in the bill.
  The CBO will score prevention if we give them reliable data, and that 
would make the true cost of this bill much less than $1 trillion. So 
let's cover the Territories and not cut important programs out of the 
bill. Let's score prevention, and let's pass a bill that honors health 
care as a right and that reestablishes the United States as the leader 
we ought to be.

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