18 Mar BPC Action Urges Passage of the Bipartisan Preventive Health Savings Act  in Health

BPC Action commends lawmakers for their leadership in introducing and advancing H.R. 766, The Preventive Health Savings Act (PHSA). BPC Action supports this bipartisan effort to better account for the full impact of preventive health care in Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates and encourages all members to support the bill on the House floor this week. 

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) has long focused on the importance of prevention. In 2014, BPC’s Prevention Task Force—advised by former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, and former CBO director Alice Rivlin—recommended that the CBO use “present discount accounting” to bring long-term savings from prevention “up” in time and to align better with CBO’s current 10-year scoring window. This could have helped ensure that CBO accounts for benefits that might be seen 20-25 years out. While slightly distinct in method but similar on principle, the Preventive Health Savings Act would provide policymakers with information related to the benefits of disease prevention and health promotion beyond the 10-year scoring window to 20- and 30-years out.  

Further, in 2019, BPC Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anand Parekh in his book Prevention First (advised by former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle) recommended greater funding for prevention research so that there are more published studies and a better evidence-base for CBO to determine the cost-effectiveness of prevention interventions and more appropriately score future federal legislation related to prevention.  

BPC Action applauds lawmakers’ commitment to this issue and urges Congress to pass the Preventive Health Savings Act. 

Read the letter here.