Healthy Start Reauthorization Act of 2004

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to announce that, along with my colleagues Representatives Edolphus Towns, Charles ``Chip'' Pickering, Elijah Cummings, Shelley Moore Capito, Rosa DeLauro, John Spratt, Bobby Rush, Jim Marshall, and Danny Davis, I am introducing legislation to reauthorize the Healthy Start Act, H.R. 4905.

The Healthy Start program works to reduce the incidence of infant mortality and low birth weight and eliminate perinatal disparities in communities across the Nation where the infant mortality rate is in excess of 150 percent of the national average. The program, which began as a successful demonstration project in 1991 under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Lewis Sullivan and was overwhelmingly authorized by Congress in 2000, has at its core the recognition that infant mortality and morbidity are not just medical problems, they are community problems. To qualify for a Healthy Start grant, communities must buy-in by forming networks of community public and private decision-makers and leaders, educators, health professionals, and family members to set ambitious goals for themselves and work in a coordinated and effective way to meet those goals. These programs are targeted to at-risk populations and are characterized by aggressive outreach to reach young women who are pregnant and/or are already mothers, as well as fathers, who live in communities with the toughest poverty, drug use, and unemployment.

We are fortunate to have a Healthy Start program in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in my Congressional district. Our Healthy Start Family Resource Center offers prenatal care, WIC resources, transportation, personal counseling and many other services. So far, 100 percent of the expectant mothers who have received prenatal care and other services through the Center have delivered healthy, full-term babies.

The Healthy Start Reauthorization Act will reauthorize the program for fiscal years 2005 through 2010 at ``such sums as may be necessary.''