[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6588-6589]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              INTRODUCING THE TREAT AND REDUCE OBESITY ACT

  (Mr. PAULSEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PAULSEN. Mr. Speaker, with one in four seniors in America 
afflicted with obesity at a price of $50 billion a year to Medicare, it 
is apparent that any attempts to put Medicare on a sound financial path 
must deal with this disease. That is why I am introducing the Treat and 
Reduce Obesity Act. The bill removes the exclusion for Medicare part D 
for covering drugs that treat and reduce obesity and makes more 
treatment options available for our seniors.
  When Medicare part D was created in 2006, there were no widely 
accepted FDA-approved obesity drugs on the market, so they were 
declared exempt

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from coverage. However, with significant medical advances, a number of 
FDA-approved weight loss drugs are now available, and our Medicare 
rules should reflect that.
  Mr. Speaker, obesity is responsible for nearly 20 percent of the 
increase in our health care spending over the last two decades, and it 
is time we take action to target, treat, and reduce obesity.

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