Children's Health Month
CHILDREN'S HEALTH MONTH -- (House of Representatives - October 19, 2005)
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Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) for leading this hour during this week of Children's Health Care Initiative and calling attention to the health of our children. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) has worked extensively in the field of psychology, particularly child psychology. He has actually written a book and has another coming out soon on the subject. I think as we get further into the hour, we probably will discuss a little about bit about how important a child's not only physical health but their mental health is.
But I do appreciate the opportunity that the gentleman has given me, Mr. Speaker, to share some of this time with him.
My background in a prior life, my professional experience was for 30 years in the practice of medicine, and the specialty that I enjoyed practicing was obstetrics and gynecology; and we have that opportunity in that field of medicine to see a child at the very beginnings of life and know how critically important a good start is. We talk about some of the things that this Republican majority has done, some of the very good programs since President Bush has been in office, certainly not the least of which is No Child Left Behind regarding our K-12 education program. But it is so important from the health care perspective that no child is left behind from the moment of conception.
So I do want to talk a little bit about the importance of prenatal care and actually call my colleagues' attention to this one poster that I have here regarding prenatal care, entitled ``Proper Prenatal Care Leads to Healthy Children.'' No question about it. Some of the bullet points, these may be a little bit difficult to see, Mr. Speaker, but hopefully we can focus the camera in on the bullet points.
First of all, 1 million, 1 million, American women deliver babies annually without receiving prenatal care. Secondly, in the United States, more than 250,000 low birth weight infants are born each year. More than 250,000. Now, for my colleagues' understanding, a low birth weight infant is one that weighs less than 2,500 grams. That is about 5 1/2 pounds. Those children are not all premature. In some instances they are unhealthy children who are near term, but low birth weight. But most of them, most of these 250,000 low birth weight infants are actually born premature as well.
And the third bullet point, low birth weight infants are more likely to suffer from disabilities, things like heart defects and respiratory illnesses. They are four times more likely to prematurely die than infants with a normal birth weight.
I have had many situations, Mr. Speaker, as an obstetrician having delivered over 5,000 children, where women come into the emergency room having had no prenatal care. And they are clearly the ones who are more likely to deliver these low birth weight babies and deliver them prematurely. That is why I think it is so important, and I know the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) would agree with me, that when we emphasize the issue, the immigration issue, of securing our borders and want to make sure that every immigrant that comes into this country comes here legally and has an opportunity to get prenatal care, as, of course, many of those who come in an illegal manner are afraid or do not now how or where to get prenatal care and will just show up in the emergency room having delivered an unhealthy premature low birth weight infant, the cost of taking care of a child in that situation in the very expensive setting of an intensive care nursery, a 2-month stay, and that would not be uncommon for a very small infant, could approach easily $750,000 to $1 million worth of health care. And that, Mr. Speaker, is really just the beginning.
That is just the beginning of the cost, because if there is a disability that is long lasting or maybe even lasting a lifetime, and that is often the case, whether it is a heart defect or a musculoskeletal deformity or a mental defect as a result of lack of oxygen, sometimes even blindness, the cost is just astronomical. So it is so important, it is so important, that we do things in this Congress at the Federal level to encourage that women get prenatal care and that children are born healthy and that, indeed, no infant, not just no child left behind, but no infant is left behind.
So I just wanted to go over with my colleagues some of the things in regard to prenatal care that are so important that I always stress to my patients: of course, encouraging immunizations and vitamin supplements, monitoring of diet, increased physical activity, clearly to avoid smoking and alcohol use during pregnancy and drug use. Certainly any drug use that is nonprescription or not under the jurisdiction and guidance of a physician is to be discouraged. Environmental factors are hugely important. As I say, a healthy diet, a regular weight check, physical activity, all of these things are so important. And then to come see the physician on a regular basis during the pregnancy. This is how we avoid, Mr. Speaker, these 1 million American women delivering babies annually either without receiving prenatal care or ending up with premature deliveries.
I want to, if the gentleman would allow me, to expand on this a bit. It is not just being born healthy and well; but the first 5 years of life, what happens to the child after that is tremendously important as well. I have a grandson, little Grey Collins. He will be a year old soon. And it is so much fun to see him, and I often have that opportunity to see him, watching the little Baby Einstein tapes, that he is hugged many times a day and loved by his parents and grandparents and his aunts and uncles and how important it is to provide that love and affection to a child and let them know that they are loved, and we will get into that. I am sure the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) will talk about that later in the hour as he discusses things like childhood obesity and childhood mental health.
But I wanted to speak a little bit about a program that we just reauthorized in the last couple of weeks here in this 109th Congress, and what I am talking about is the Head Start program. Sometimes we get criticized, we, the Republican majority, that we do not care enough about social programs and we do not care enough about the poor and underprivileged and people that do not maybe have the same opportunity that the upper middle class society has.
But let me tell the Members we do care. We do care. And this reauthorization is proof of the pudding.
Just a little historical perspective on that. Head Start and its cousin, Early Head Start or comprehensive child development programs, serving children from birth to age 5, as I stated, as well as pregnant women and their families, the critical component of the Head Start program is that it is child focused with the overall goal to increase school readiness of young children in low-income families, Mr. Speaker. The Head Start program has a long tradition of delivering comprehensive and high-quality services designed to foster healthy development in children that need our help the most.
The program provides a range of individualized services in areas of education, early childhood development, but not stopping there. It also offers medical, dental, and mental health services to these children and to their families. It even goes a step further by providing nutritional counseling and encouraging parental involvement in their child's development. It is a rich program. I have got a lot of statistics, and as we continue the hour, I will relate some of those specifics, particularly in regard to the reauthorization and how much we are doing in that program.
But I just wanted to point out, as I know the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) agrees, how important it is that we do everything we can to make sure that our children get a good start in life. And as I have stated at the outset, the prenatal care aspect is
hugely important. Programs like the Early Head Start and Head Start program so that the children, all children, when they get to that 5-year-old kindergarten class or get to the first grade, that they have an equal opportunity with their peers and they are not starting school with one hand tied behind their back. So it is hugely important that they are healthy, that they are happy, that they are loved and they have an opportunity, as we all want, in life.
At this point I will continue to be here with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) during this hour.
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Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman pointed out, and he is so right, we need to move into the 21st century in regard to our health care system and modeling. Just trying to come up with better drugs and the latest surgery techniques to treat complicated illness is not enough. We really need to focus on preventive care.
You are talking about in the last few minutes, of course, your specialty, in talking about mental illness, and as it relates also to childhood obesity, and I could not help but think as I was listening to your discussion, and as you know, this week we just passed H.R. 554. H.R. 554 is the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act of 2005. This is a bill my colleagues are aware of the fact it would not allow someone to sue a fast food manufacturer because they have gorged themselves with a multiple number of Big Macs or any other kind of fast food, or sometimes what we refer to as junk food. It is not the fault of the food industry.
I used a little analogy when I was talking about this on the floor yesterday in discussing the rule of my belt, which is a size 36. That is, I hate to admit, the size of my waist, but if I wanted really out of blind pride to suggest that I had a 24-inch waist and I cinched that belt down a couple of notches, in doing so, I put pressure, compression on something referred to as the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, it would result in a condition of numbness and lack of feeling on the anterior thigh. Then should I go out and sue the belt company because they are at fault because I misused a product?
This is what this bill, of course, is all about, a common-sense type bill.
Parenthetically, Mr. Speaker, I also want to mention the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the author of the bill, our good friend and colleague, is actually in the hospital now and recovering hopefully from a fairly minor condition, but we want to pay tribute to him. I know he is proud that we passed this bill this week.
The comment that I wanted to make is this issue of personal responsibility, and parents should have that personal responsibility obviously in the way they conduct themselves in regard to how they eat and a healthy diet and exercise, but even more importantly is the responsibility that they have to give a good example and instruction to their children.
I think it is probably the worst form of child abuse to let these youngsters that at a very early age overeat and become obese. You have talked about the issue of poor mental image, self-image, and of course, I also see you talked about Hollywood and, of course, this issue of there is no such thing as mental illness. I think probably they might predominate in some of those diseases, which we categorize as mental illness.
But quite honestly, when a child goes to school and there is this emphasis on thinness and you see these youngsters wearing these Britney Spears' jeans and that sort of thing, a child even a little bit overweight and certainly one that is significantly obese, of course they are going to have a poor image of themselves. They are going to withdraw, and they are going to become shy. It is very likely they are going to be picked on. How in the world can they grow and develop with a healthy self-image? No wonder they end up needing to be counseled and treated by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) and other mental health care specialists.
Yes, unfortunately, some even go on to harm themselves and possibly even commit suicide. So I guess the most important thing that I would want to say as a physician Member is that we need to prevent this.
We need to make sure that parents get the message that they have an obligation, not just to take care of themselves, but first and foremost to take care of these precious children that they bring into the world. It is their responsibility to make sure that they are from the very beginning, when they start eating at the table, to make sure that they are healthy and stay healthy so you do not have to have them ending up in your office treating them for not only mental illness but also the many complications of obesity.
You mentioned them. You mentioned diabetes, high blood pressure, so many things. And talk about the cost to this health care system of ours. We always talk about waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare and the Medicaid programs and wanting to eliminate that, and we are very diligent and will continue to be so. But this is almost a no-brainer. It is like we heard former Speaker Newt Gingrich say to a group of us earlier today, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania was a part of that as we had him come to speak to Members of the House. We are not talking about low-hanging fruit here in regard to saving money and saving lives. We are talking about fruit that is lying on the ground sitting there rotting waiting for us to pick it up. So clearly that is what my message would be in regard to that.
Mr. MURPHY. I thank the gentleman. I asked about another issue, too, which is one that is so critically important for children. My colleague from Georgia had mentioned before, during pregnancy, smoking being one of the risk factors. I believe that the sad statistic is that the Pittsburgh region has some of the highest maternal smoking rates during pregnancy in the Nation. My understanding is a lot of complications can come when you have a mother who smokes during pregnancy. Certainly an important part of prenatal care for our children is understanding the importance of helping a mother to stop smoking during that time.
I wonder if the gentleman can comment on some of the complications that might come for that mother and that baby not only during labor and delivery but the long-term effects for that child when the mother smokes during pregnancy.
Mr. GINGREY. Without question probably the most common condition that we see in smoking moms is something called toxemia of pregnancy. Toxemia, by the very word, it is a poison. We do not know exactly what that poison is, but something occurs in those moms that develop toxemia. It is not always because of smoking, but frequently it is. And also so often that condition will lead also to pre-term labor and delivery and one of these low birth weight infants.
In the extreme, toxemia of pregnancy before birth results in a very, very high blood pressure. It can cause a stroke, a deep coma, one from which sometimes the mother never recovers and the child is lost. So we are talking about one of the worst complications of pregnancy other than just out and out exsanguination from bleeding, which is also a possibility in any pregnancy.
But smoking, we see that condition more often. And then, of course, childhood asthma, which I am sure the gentleman has seen plenty of cases of that, youngsters that come in because there is that secondary smoke situation. Not only do they have to suffer with it during the 9 months of pregnancy of their mom; but once they are born, that smoking continues in the household. So it is a huge complication, no question about that.
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Mr. GINGREY. The gentleman is so right, and I appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on this issue.
This issue of scoring, as the gentleman is talking about, it reminds me of course of the debate during the Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Act that we passed in December of 2003. Of course, that part D will go into effect and the modernization piece is already in effect for Medicare, but part D, the prescription drug part, will start January 1. But all we heard and continue to hear, particularly from the other side and for those nay-sayers who keep wanting to talk negative about really a very good program that is going to be a Godsend for our neediest seniors, I talked about this on the floor, my colleagues I know heard me last night. But the talk, the emphasis is on the cost of part D, and the cost estimate is based on the number of seniors that participate ultimately.
I do not think anybody really knows, Mr. Speaker, what that number will be; but at one point it looked like the CBO said, well, it is going to be $400 billion additional Medicare cost over a 5-year period of time. Then those numbers were revised, and then we were hearing as much maybe as $750 billion. That is the scoring that the gentleman from Pennsylvania is talking about, and my colleagues understand what he means. You get no credit for the fact that many people who sign up and, yes, there will be an additional Medicare cost for them on this part D program, but the fact that they are able to take those medications, they can finally afford to take that statin to lower their cholesterol and that medication, that insulin to lower their blood sugar or whatever antihypertensive to lower their blood pressure, guess what, we get less spending on part A, the hospital part, when you end up in the emergency room with a stroke because you could not take your medicine, or you end up on the operating table for your coronary bypass or maybe even worse an amputation or a kidney transplant, and then you have this huge cost to the physician under part B.
The truth of the matter is, and what the gentleman was emphasizing, is that you get no credit for saving those costs, not to mention the fact that it is so much more compassionate to spend money on prevention rather than treatment, particularly when the treatment sometimes is not very successful and a person could ultimately be in a nursing home for years and disabled for the rest of their lives.
I will take it a step further before turning it back over to my colleague. It is the same thing, this scoring issue, in regard to the tax cuts that this Republican leadership has effected over these past 3 years. The scorers, the CBO, the number crunchers say, well, these tax cuts, the elimination of the marriage tax penalty, increasing the child tax credit from $600 an infant to $1,000 a child, giving small business men and women an opportunity to more rapidly depreciate investment in bricks and mortar and creating new jobs, all of these things, elimination of the death tax, no taxation without respiration I firmly believe in, the scorers said that was going to cost us $1.3 trillion.
My colleague remembers that. And a lot of people said, oh, we cannot afford that. What are we doing cutting taxes? Well, after about a year and a half, when we looked at our revenue stream, what was the result? We had about 225 billion more dollars, which on the scoring side we get no credit for.
So the gentleman is so right. So many of these things that we are talking about tonight in this hour, these innovations, these community health centers that the President has funded, recommended, and feels so strongly about, on the scoring side you get no credit for; but we do save money, as the gentleman points out. And just think, also, it is the compassionate, conservative thing to do for the American people.
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