Dear Friend,
I am pleased to share with you new provisions of health care reform that will make preventive care more accessible and affordable. These new regulations, authorized by the Affordable Care Act, require new health plans to cover preventive services at no cost to the patient. Americans currently use preventive services at only half of the recommended rate because of their prohibitive costs.
Comprehensive preventive care can save billions of dollars and thousands of lives. According to statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seven in ten deaths in America result from chronic and often preventable diseases. HHS data also shows that 69 million workers report missed days due to illness each year, which reduces economic output in this country by $260 billion per year. I believe we must do better, and this historic health reform legislation will keep many Americans, especially Inland residents, healthier and save our nation money in the long run.