[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 539]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              HEALTH CARE REFORM AND REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, voters all across the country have rejected 
the ``government knows best'' philosophy that prevailed during last 
year's health care debate. In contrast, my Republican colleagues and I 
believe that American innovation and reduced government intervention 
are keys to successful health reform that reduces health care costs. 
After all, reducing the costs of health care should be the primary 
focus of any health care reform bill. Unfortunately, the highly flawed 
health care bill that passed last year does not bring down the cost of 
health care. It drives costs up. If we are ever going to fix health 
care, we must focus on reducing costs.
  For instance, it's estimated that 1 percent of the most seriously ill 
in America account for more than 25 percent of all health care 
expenditures. What if we could improve the care of these patients and 
at the same time reduce costs? We can. We can by harnessing the power 
of innovation and health research in groundbreaking fields like 
regenerative medicine.
  Regenerative medicine is a highly specialized field that focuses on 
developing technologies to replace or regenerate organs and tissues 
using the patient's own cells. These treatments would reduce the cost 
of chronic diseases by up to $275 billion a year and would dramatically 
improve the lives of older Americans suffering from terrible, chronic 
illnesses.
  The cost of chronic disease is only going to increase if we don't 
focus on innovations like regenerative medicine that can revolutionize 
how we treat illnesses. These costs are going to spiral ever higher 
mainly because we are in the midst of a major aging of our population. 
Demographers estimate that in the next 20 years, people in the age 
range of 65 to 74 years old will increase from 6 percent of the 
population to about 10 percent of the population, almost doubling. At 
the same time, people over the age of 75 will increase from 6 percent 
to 9 percent of the total population. This demographic shift will 
inexorably drive up the costs of health care as more elderly receive 
treatment for chronic diseases like late-stage Parkinson's disease, 
kidney failure, heart failure, or diabetes.
  Regenerative medicine has the potential to revolutionize the 
treatment of all these diseases. But that may not happen. Why not? It's 
simple. The same kinds of bureaucracy, regulations, and red tape that 
are stuffed into every corner of the ObamaCare law are holding back the 
widespread adoption of major medical breakthroughs in this field.
  Consider the fact that Dr. Anthony Atala at the Institute for 
Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University has been able 
successfully to grow bladders for bladder replacement surgeries from 
the recipient's own cells.

                              {time}  1200

  Yet despite several successful bladder transplants, the FDA insists 
that the institute go through additional costly clinical trials on 
animals and spend millions of dollars on testing that is clearly 
unnecessary based on his success with the human transplant surgeries.
  This sort of Federal regulatory burden is stifling innovation in 
America, and the government takeover of health care backed by the 
Democrats last year imposes still more job and innovation-destroying 
regulations on health research.
  Regenerative medicine has the potential to improve the health of our 
citizens and return them healthy and whole to the workforce. It holds 
the promise of hundreds of billions of savings in health care costs 
and, unlike ObamaCare, will create jobs focused on developing these 
technologies across the Nation. Congress would be wise to strip away 
the bureaucracy and red tape that is stifling innovation in fields like 
regenerative medicine that could lower costs and improve the lives of 
all Americans.

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