[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5870]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      PREVENTION AND PUBLIC HEALTH

  (Ms. PINGREE of Maine asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Madam Speaker, later today we are taking up a 
bill to repeal funding for prevention and public health. Members will 
have a simple choice; the choice is to pay now or pay later.
  Staying healthy and treating disease will always have a price. In my 
State of Maine, treating preventable chronic diseases held a price tag 
of $1.4 billion last year alone. But there is a better way. We can 
invest in preventing these life-threatening expensive illnesses, we can 
invest in slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS, and we can promote better 
nutrition to reduce obesity. That is exactly what the Prevention and 
Public Health fund does in my State and throughout the country. It 
invests in prevention and good health, and it reduces chronic disease. 
Spending just $10 per person in preventative programs will save this 
country $16 billion a year in health care costs.
  Madam Speaker, our choice is not just pay now or pay later; it's pay 
less now or pay a lot more later. And that's a choice we can't afford 
to make.

                          ____________________