OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Poison Center Network Act

Floor Speech

Date: Jan. 8, 2014
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care

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Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friends, Mr. Engel, the lead Democratic cosponsor of this bipartisan legislation, as well as Mr. Terry, who has helped champion this, not only in this Congress, but for the last number of years, as well.

This bill needs to get done. H.R. 3527 is really good legislation, and it's bipartisan. It funds more than 50 poison control centers across the country. In 2012, almost 4 million calls were managed by our Nation's poison control centers. These centers and the physicians, the nurses, the pharmacists, and toxicology specialists who staff them save lives by providing free and confidential health services regarding potential exposure to harmful toxins 24/7 and in 150 different languages.

So let me tell you about Michigan. The Michigan Regional Poison Control Center at DMC Children's Hospital in Detroit is one of the largest and busiest poison centers in the country, offering leadership in new data collection processes and identification of new trends in poisonings. The center provides assessment, triage, management, and continued monitoring of more than 90,000 poison exposures in Michigan every year at no direct cost to the patient, the practitioner, or the health care institution.

Poison centers like this save money, as many of these crisis calls avert an expensive trip to the emergency room. In fact, a 2012 report by the independent Lewin Group determined that the Nation's poison centers save more than $1.19 billion in avoided medical utilization and reduced hospital length of stay every year. In addition, every $1 of funding saves about $13 in unnecessary health care costs and lost productivity in the country.

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Mr. UPTON. Our Nation's poison centers exemplify successful public-private partnerships, with Federal funds providing only 18 percent of the poison center budget. That partnership saves the Federal Government a lot of money while also delivering access to critical services for Americans across the country, let alone the lives that we save. So I would ask every one of my colleagues to support this very important, bipartisan legislation.

Again, I want to commend the leadership of Mr. Terry and Mr. Engel for their continued effort on this to ``git-r-done.''

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