Repealing Prevention and Public Health Fund
Floor Speech
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Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I am frankly stunned to have to come to the House floor today to talk about a bill that defunds the largest investment we have ever made in our population's health: the prevention and public health trust fund. The trust fund specifically says what it is going to be used for: reducing tobacco use, expanding opportunities for recreation and exercise, bringing healthier foods like fruit and vegetables to communities in need; and helping kids to eat healthier meals at school.
All of us who have been involved in health issues for many years know that the biggest public health epidemic that we have right now is obesity. If we don't do anything to reverse these trends, then for our children and our children's children, we are not going to have good outcomes. Seventy-five percent of all health care costs are spent on the treatment of chronic diseases, many of them preventable. Our Nation's youth are confronting unprecedented levels of obesity, placing them at ever-increasing risk for those very same chronic health conditions. I think it is pathetic that we have children in this country who only have access to playgrounds at McDonald's with their 8,000 playgrounds in this country. And so what this trust fund does is it supports research that examines evidence-based practices relating to prevention, including the translation of interventions from academic settings to real-world settings.
This is not, as the opponents of this trust fund say, a slush fund or something that is simply willy-nilly spending. Instead what it is, it's evidence-based and it's looking at ways that we can prevent childhood obesity and nutrition, reduce tobacco use, and expand opportunities for recreation and exercise.
This is something all of us can get behind. This is something we should all support. I am sorry that it has become caught up in this partisan web, because frankly we should all support this for our kids.
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