Delegate Donna M. Christensen last week introduced a bill that updates existing budget law, directing the Congressional Budget Office to provide more comprehensive information on the savings of preventative health measures beyond the current 10-year window.
In announcing the bill in a news release, Christensen – a former V.I. health commissioner and a doctor who practiced medicine in the Virgin Islands until her election as the territory’s non-voting delegate to Congress in 1996 – said her proposal is a more responsible approach than the current process. Under current law, the scoring process does not give Congress a complete picture on preventative health, she said, as its long-term benefits are not fully reflected, if at all, in cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
“Health-care reform represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for creating a system which values prevention, but this promise will not be fully realized without modernizing the way Congress scores preventative health legislation,” Christensen said. “The Preventative Health Savings Act requires CBO to conduct an initial analysis to determine whether the preventative health measure would result in substantial savings outside the scoring window, and if those savings exist, CBO must include an estimate and description of those future-year savings in its budget projections.”
To ensure that CBO’s projections on preventative health savings are tied to real scientific data, Christensen said the Preventative Health Savings Acts defines preventative health as any action designed to avoid future health-care costs that is demonstrated by credible and publicly available epidemiological projection models, incorporating clinical trials or observational studies in humans.
“This narrow approach prevents the legislation from being misused by keeping the focus where it should be – on good data,” Christensen said. “This bill will help ensure that the cost savings that we know prevention yields are more appropriately integrated into the policymaking process.”
Over the years, CBO scoring has evolved, going from five years to seven years to the current 10-year window. The Preventative Health Savings Act is another logical evolution, Christensen said, and is done in a manner that respects CBO’s rigorous standards while still modernizing budget laws.
