Dr. Michael C. Burgess Preventive Health Savings Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Dr. Michael C. Burgess Preventive Health Savings Act.

A great frustration for those of us who work a lot on healthcare policy is the difficulty in accurately predicting the cost of preventive care. Right now, as you heard from my coauthor of the bill, Dr. Burgess, when Congress looks at the cost and benefits of preventive healthcare, we only look at a 10-year window. That is true even when the savings associated with preventive care would accrue 15, 20, 30 years in the future.

That is why Dr. Burgess and I wrote this bill, so that we could look at preventive care over a longer time frame and actually see the cost savings that it will give us. That will help us refocus our healthcare legislation on prevention rather than waiting until serious diseases occur.

Preventive care averts illnesses, helps catch problems before they get too bad, and also saves lives. It has another benefit. It saves money. Therefore, Congress should be able to consider how preventive healthcare saves taxpayers' dollars when we prepare to vote on legislation.

This bill provides a framework for committees to request an extended estimate for legislation related to preventive healthcare from the Congressional Budget Office. With the framework laid out in this bill, committees can, on a bipartisan basis, request an estimate of the effects of a preventive healthcare bill up to a 30-year window.

This sounds a little technical but, frankly, I believe it will revolutionize how Congress considers preventive healthcare legislation. It is going to make it so Congress will have long-term cost estimates on preventive care legislation from a nonpartisan, trusted source.

As new innovations to keep Americans healthy are developed, we can better consider their long-term effects as we try to make them more available to the American people.

At the same time, as you heard, this bill does not allow any new budgetary gimmicks. Instead, it just gives us the framework to get the information we need.

Part of the genesis of this bill was when Dr. Burgess and I and others were working on the Affordable Care Act. I really wanted to put in the mandated benefits the inclusion of smoking cessation.

Now, everybody in this room and in the gallery knows, helping Americans stop smoking cigarettes is one of the most obvious areas where preventive care can just save lives but also save money. We all know the terrible results of smoking: higher risks of lung cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, COPD, and more. Treating these conditions is expensive, but it is also deadly for people.

CBO was working on this 10-year window when it made an estimate on my ideas, and they said: Congresswoman, we think the idea of smoking cessation is a great idea, but, unfortunately, the smoking cessation programs like the patch and Nicorette and things like that are just too expensive, and so we can't afford to pay for them as part of the mandated benefits of the ACA. To me, that is crazy, and that is why we need this bill.

Dr. Burgess and I have been working on this bill ever since, over 10 years now, and I am proud to see it come to the floor. Here it is now. It is among the first bipartisan bills from the Budget Committee to be reported to the full House in years.

We talk a lot about needing a long-term view. I can't think of a better example of a long-term view than a bill that takes more than 10 years, but yet we persevere.

Finally, I thank Mike Burgess for his partnership on this bill and his partnership on the Energy and Commerce Committee for many other bills. We disagree a lot, but we have found a lot of common ground, and we always work in good faith to deliver for our constituents and the American people.

This bill is a perfect example of how we work together to write commonsense legislation that centers on what Americans need to lead healthy lives. It is truly a bipartisan victory. It is good legislation. I am going to miss Dr. Burgess and his vision on the committee. I hope that we can work together to get this bill through the other body just as quickly as we can. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this bill.

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