{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-marshall-healthcare-spending-needs-to-go-towards-preventing-not-just-treating/", "Senator Marshall: Healthcare Spending Needs to Go Towards Preventing, Not Just Treating", "2026-07-29", "2026", "2026-07", "Republican", "Senate", "KS", "Roger Marshall", "M001198", "www.marshall.senate.gov", "marshall", "https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Senator Marshall At Tufts Food is Medicine Institute & Food Tank Capitol Hill Briefing\n\nWashington \u2013 U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian at Tufts Food is Medicine Institute & Food Tank Capitol Hill Briefing to discuss the chronic disease epidemic in America, the importance of nutrition on the overall health of Americans, the research and legislation in process, and how making America healthy again is going to happen through a stronger focus on prevention rather than just treatment.\n\nClick HERE to download the full video.\n\nOn the importance of nutrition in fertility and pregnancy:\n\n\u201cYeah, Dari, it\u2019s great to be with you, and you know, where do I start? We could talk about infertility, preconception, conception, miscarriages, the pregnancy, and the delivery \u2014 how important nutrition is for all of those. Infertility: I had a huge growing infertility practice, significantly impacted by the chronic disease epidemic. It\u2019s interesting now we\u2019re reading about GLP-1s, and they\u2019re worried that we\u2019re going to have a birth explosion, and they\u2019re citing that it\u2019s because probably one of the side effects of the GLP-1 is if you\u2019re on hormonal birth control pills, it decreases its effectiveness of it. But what I\u2019m going to say is because when the women lose weight, they\u2019re going to start ovulating again, right? Or more often. So, I mean, the whole way through the pregnancy. One other just simple example \u2014 you think about importance of folic acid preconceptionally, that it decreases the risk of spina bifida, anencephaly, that type of thing as well. But it\u2019s got to be in their systems before they conceive, you know \u2014 it does no good after conception. So that\u2019s just one thing that we can measure. How many things are out there that you and I don\u2019t even know exist that are in just general nutrition to help have a healthy pregnancy?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know, and by the way, in at least a third of the infertility it\u2019s the guy\u2019s fault. And you think how much nutrition would impact their sperm count. You know what your nutrition does to your nails, to your hair, your skin \u2014 things with really quick turnover. But sperm are one of those things as well that you\u2019re turning over a lot. So, I mean, the guy\u2019s got a responsibility here too in this.\u201d\n\nOn the chronic disease epidemic in America and bipartisan support for healthcare changes:\n\n\u201cYeah, well, just to your point, when we got here to Congress 10 years ago, we wanted to do something in this space, and I told my staff, \u2018Go out and find me somebody that we can get bipartisan support on this. And by the way, make them as far left as you can because there\u2019ll be plenty of room between them and me.\u2019 And Congressman McGovern stepped up, and it is truly something we agree on. But I think it\u2019s the epidemic that we have: 70% of Americans have a chronic disease right now; the obesity rate has got to be more than that; 90% of the money we\u2019re spending in healthcare are for these seven chronic diseases right now. So, I think it\u2019s the right thing to do, and then also it\u2019s just the cost of healthcare. Everyone in this room understands: if you believe that balancing the federal budget is important to you, saving Medicare is important to you, we can\u2019t drug ourselves out of this. That we got to figure out a way to make America healthy again, and that\u2019ll decrease the spend on Medicare. Think about it \u2014 if we\u2019re spending 18% of our GDP on healthcare \u2014 if we spend $7 trillion a year up here, about 1.5% or 2% of that is on healthcare as well. So how do we save some of that money? That\u2019s to make people healthy again. Look at the health of our country. Some of my good friends across the aisle will look at me when they see how much money we\u2019re spending on healthcare, and they\u2019ll say, \u201cWhy can\u2019t you doctors bring down the cost of healthcare?\u201d Well, it\u2019s because we\u2019re sick. Our incidence of chronic diseases and obesity is got to be between 2-7x of other developed countries right now, so we are utilizing these resources. And it\u2019s more than just that obesity leads to heart disease \u2014 I mean, I don\u2019t know what you think, but I think that Alzheimer\u2019s, there\u2019s going to be a component of inflammation from chronically high sugars. Hip replacements, knee replacements are happening 10 years younger now. Why? Because we\u2019re putting more stress on these joints.\u201d\n\nOn current legislation and the role of experts and Congressional staff:\n\n\u201cShameless plug: if you throw that with our price tags bill forcing all the healthcare providers to show their prices, they save another $1,000 a month.\u201d\n\n\u201cRight. So, this week in committee, we passed a bill on ultra-processed foods: that we would put a label on it that it could be dangerous to your health. But I\u2019m not sure what ultra-processed food means. And I think that defining what a definition is within ultra-processed foods, and then what\u2019s specifically in that is causing the inflammation? And I would just ask you, what do you think of ultra-processed food as kind of a definition? And this is what I\u2019ve got to do: I\u2019m going to go to the expert \u2014 Dari and Tufts are leading the world as far as I\u2019m concerned on nutrition advice. And I know the CDC, NIH, HHS, and Secretary Kennedy are working on this definition as well. But I think that\u2019s just one example. I think we still haven\u2019t figured out what\u2019s in ultra-processed food \u2014 what\u2019s good, and what\u2019s bad?\u201d\n\n\u201cOkay. Well, thank you for being here. Because I can\u2019t be an expert at everything, and just like a doctor, I wouldn\u2019t want to do your heart cath \u2014 I\u2019m going to get a consultation as well. And I can\u2019t be an expert right now, but I need some help right now defining what ultra-processed food is. Again, every night in the paper, we\u2019re so confused \u2014 you find out, \u2018Oh, this is the problem. Coffee\u2019s good, coffee\u2019s bad. How many cups of coffee is good for you as well?\u2019 You know the story.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the other thing my mind jumps to are ingredients. What\u2019s generally recognized as safe? Some of those types of topics. To give me research to help me understand what is safe and isn\u2019t safe and then confirming things that have been sitting out there for 40 years that we need to go back \u2014 how do we start closing some of the loopholes that have existed on that as well? But I think there\u2019s a research component as well.\u201d\n\nOn focusing more healthcare funding on prevention and detection:\n\n\u201cYeah, and another big part of the spending right now is on early detection as well \u2014 that I think that they\u2019re counting as early research on prevention and causes as well. Number one is I don\u2019t think we need a bigger bucket \u2014 I think $50 billion, I\u2019m getting close, is probably enough money. And the last thing you want is Congress micromanaging it \u2014 so we give $7 billion to the Cancer Institute, we give $4 or $5 billion to Heart, and I think that within those areas they need to dedicate more money to what you\u2019re describing. And what percentage is it? Is it 4%? Is it 10%? Again, I think we need experts to come in. But all the focus right now is certainly on the treatment stage, so I\u2019m all for more on this end as well to arm us. And one part of the research we need, Dari, is coaching. The big emphasis is education, but having delivered 5,000 babies, education doesn\u2019t work; coaching does. When you have a nurse coach coaching that person up, trying to help keep their sugars under control, keep their blood pressures under control. So, we need best practices when it comes to trying to implement these lifestyle changes.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-30T07:32:48Z", "2026-07-30T07:34:08Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-marshall-healthcare-spending-needs-to-go-towards-preventing-not-just-treating/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7109278813004494, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}