PREEMIE Reauthorization Act of 2018

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3029) to revise and extend the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who deliver Infants Early Act (PREEMIE Act).

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the Record on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3029, the PREEMIE Reauthorization Act of 2018. This bill passed the Senate with robust bipartisan support, and I expect it will do the same in this Chamber.

This bill reauthorizes a program that is vital to the health and well-being of premature babies and their mothers. It is fitting that we have called this legislation to the floor following Prematurity Awareness Month, which took place the month of November.

While we are taking up the Senate bill, which was led by the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Chairman Lamar Alexander and Senator Michael Bennet, I would like to thank our House champions of this legislation, Representative Anna Eshoo and Representative Leonard Lance. I am pleased that we were able to rally bicameral, bipartisan support around improving the health of premature infants.

Preterm and low birth weight, combined, make up the second leading cause of infant death following birth defects. This legislation will increase research relating to preterm labor and delivery and the care, treatment, and outcomes of preterm and low birthweight infants.

Preemies and low birthweight infants are at risk for various health challenges and disabilities, and we still have much to learn about factors relating to prematurity. This bill allows for continued collection of maternal-infant clinical and biomedical information in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System. Such data collection and surveillance will allow the CDC, and national, State, and local health officials to have a better picture of what prematurity, including its causes and impacts, looks like in our country.

This legislation also requires the Advisory Committee on Maternal and Infant Health to publicly publish and submit to Congress a report on its activities and recommendations. That advisory committee has been tasked with

developing strategies to address gaps in Federal research, programs, and education efforts related to the prevention of severe maternal morbidity, maternal mortality, infant mortality, and other adverse birth outcomes. This ties nicely into H.R. 1318, the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, which will also be on the floor of this House this afternoon.

Additionally, this legislation establishes an interagency working group, directing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to collaborate with other departments to improve coordination of programs and activities to prevent preterm birth, infant mortality, and related adverse birth outcomes. The working group is required to submit a report to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support S. 3029, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance), one of the authors of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to take a second and thank Representative Davis for his kind remarks, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support S. 3029, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.

I also want to commend the Subcommittee on Health and the Committee on Energy and Commerce for its outstanding work under the leadership of Dr. Burgess.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to speak about sickle cell, a bill that has been worked on and passed. Of course, sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder characterized by affected red blood cells that mutate into the shape of a crescent or sickle. And as such, these cells are unable to pass through small blood vessels. It is a recessive- genetic condition that occurs when a

child inherits two sickle cell genes, or traits, from each parent.

The consequences and complications of this disease are extreme. The Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, whom we have worked with for many years on this legislation, have studied and reported that common complications with this disease include early childhood death from infection; stroke in young children and adults; lung problems similar to pneumonia; chronic damage to organs, including the kidney, leading to kidney failure; damage to the lungs, causing pulmonary hypertension; and severe, painful episodes. In fact, pain episode are a hallmark of sickle cell disease.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we are at this juncture in passing S. 2465, a bill designed to help improve, treat, prevent, and conduct research on sickle cell disease and to include other blood diseases for surveillance and data collection.

While this legislation includes other blood diseases, its original intent and its continuing focus is to put major emphasis on sickle cell disease and issues related to it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues, Representative Michael Burgess, and Representative G.K. Butterfield, Senator Tim Scott, and Senator Cory Booker for their tireless support and efforts to bring this bipartisan and bicameral bill to fruition.

There has been a great deal of back and forth on this bill. Therefore, I want to thank, again, Dr. Burgess, the chief Republican cosponsor and advocate. I want to commend the leadership on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Chairman Greg Walden and Ranking Member Frank Pallone.

Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight the work of my colleague and friend, Representative G.K. Butterfield, who carried the bill for this legislation in the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Our staffs did outstanding work, and I commend all of them, especially my Health Subcommittee staffer, Dr. Caleb Gilchrist. I want to acknowledge and thank our advocate organizations, the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, the American Society of Hematology, and other organizations, hospital providers, families, and those infected with the sickle cell disease.

Mr. Speaker, those who say that Congress does not work and is not working, I tell you, when we pass legislation of this sort, it tells me that America is on the right track and we are, indeed, moving forward to help make our communities as safe and healthy as they can possibly be.

I end by just thanking Dr. Burgess, again, for his outstanding leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and my classmate, Mr. Green, for his distinguished service here in the House. He is retiring, and I want to salute him.

I also want to salute my partner in this effort, Mr. Lance from New Jersey. He is going to be missed at the committee and missed in the House. I think he has always been value added to the Congress, and we all wish him well.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bipartisan legislation. The shorthand for it is the PREEMIE Act. It is legislation that I introduced with Congressman Lance to expand research, education, and the prevention of preterm birth.

Preterm birth, or birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is the leading cause of newborn mortality and the second leading cause of infant mortality in our country. In 2016, over 388,000 infants were born too early; and, every year, over 20,000 babies in the United States will die before their first birthday, many of them from complications of preterm birth.

In addition to being the leading cause of newborn death, premature birth can cause a lifetime of health challenges and intellectual disabilities for children who survive.

In addition to the emotional and physical toll of prematurity, there are significant healthcare costs to families, medical systems, and our overall economy. A report by the Institute of Medicine found the cost associated with preterm birth in the United States was $26.2 billion annually--that is a staggering amount of money--or $51,600 per infant born preterm. While employers, private insurers, and individuals bear about half the costs of healthcare for these infants, 40 percent of this amount is paid for by Medicaid.

Moms and babies face higher risks than ever before. After the statistics decreasing for over a decade, which is exactly what we wanted them to do, for the third year in a row now the preterm birth rate in our country has worsened, so the passing of this legislation has come at the right time.

I am proud of the work that we have done on this Reauthorization Act and that it is going to head to the President for his signature, and I am proud to have authored the original PREEMIE Act with Congressman Fred Upton in 2006.

This updated reauthorization builds on the important investments that have been made, and we add to them. I think that is the most important thing to say.

With the incidence of preterm birth increasing across the United States, we need to do everything that we can for the mothers and for the newborns so that we improve the outcomes for them because it is their lives.

The PREEMIE Act did pass the Senate unanimously on September 12, and I have every confidence that the House is going to double the record.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and, again, pay tribute to him for his exceptional service here in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3029, the Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers Who Deliver Infants Early, or PREEMIE, Reauthorization Act of 2018.

Over the past 3 years, the preterm birth rate in the United States worsened, placing more mothers and babies at risk. Such preterm births are the largest contributors to infant death in the United States and, for those infants who survive, a major cause of long-term health problems throughout their lives.

While this preterm rate in the U.S. is 9.93 percent, mothers and infants in Texas are at even greater risk. In fact, in 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, 10.6 percent of live births were born preterm. The percentage is even greater for African American mothers and infants at 13.6 percent, a rate that is 39 percent higher than the rate among all women in Texas.

This legislation would help combat those negative trends by continuing support for federally supported activities that prevent premature births, such as research and programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as activities that promote healthy pregnancies and preventing preterm birth at the Health Resources and Services Administration.

This reauthorization legislation also requires such efforts to address the determinants that contribute to the health disparities in preterm birth.

I thank Representative Eshoo and Representative Lance for their leadership on this issue.

I encourage my colleagues to support S. 6085 to extend and expand Federal efforts to prevent and address preterm birth.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), the cosponsor of this bill and a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Health Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in very strong support of the PREEMIE Reauthorization Act. My partner in this effort over several years has been the distinguished Congresswoman from California, Anna Eshoo.

There may be no greater calling than to help infants thrive in the early days of their lives. Working together and getting this legislation signed into law is a matter of essential importance. This is good and important work and the kind of positive difference Federal efforts can make in the lives of many.

We have a tremendous partner in the March of Dimes. For many families, the March of Dimes and its network and advocates across the country are beacons of light at dark moments. I thank the March of Dimes and their supporters for being the great defenders and fighters for mothers and for their infants.

This legislation will keep up the momentum to help pregnant women. We need to reauthorize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's research and data collection efforts and improve the Health Resources and Services Administration. Doctors and the public need to have the best information and care options available, and this bill does that.