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Diabetes

Floor Speech

By: Andy Barr
By: Andy Barr
Date: May 17, 2013
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health and Health Care

Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to address a mounting health crisis and on behalf of nearly 26 million Americans and 532,000 Kentuckians who suffer from diabetes.

This disease kills more Americans each year than breast cancer and AIDS combined and costs our Nation more than $200 billion in health care expenses each year. Tragically, every 17 seconds, someone is diagnosed with diabetes, and current estimates project that, by 2050, as many as one in three Americans will suffer from diabetes.

We cannot sit idly by and accept the likelihood of this bleak future. Diabetes can be devastating, but it can be managed. Like most chronic diseases, diabetes can be attributed to poor behaviors, such as lack of physical activity, poor nutritional choices and other risky behaviors. By not only changing our behaviors but by improving access to education, proper diabetes care and continued funding for research to find a cure, we can truly make a positive, sustained change in the quality of life for millions of Americans.


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