i am reminded of the story of the fellow who was on his hands and knees late at night under a streetlight in the city , probably had too much to drink , and a police officer sees him and says : excuse me , sir , what are you doing ? 
the gentleman says : i am looking for my car keys . 
and the police officer says to him : well , where did you lose them ? 
he said : i lost them down at the end of that dark ally down there . 
and the policeman says : well , why are you not looking for your keys at the end of that dark ally over there ? 
and the gentleman says : because there is more light over here . 
sometimes i think the way we look at these medical issues , instead of looking at the cost savings involved with prevention , we simply are able to look at how much it costs us up front because it is easier to find that data . 
it is tougher to pay attention to prevention . 
my colleague brought up some great points . 
prenatal care , early head start , head start , what that contributes to in helping save problems . 
we talked about community health centers and spending money . 
i like the president 's plan of a community health center in every county in america where there is poverty and an uninsured , can help reduce emergency visits by four-fifths , the cost of the emergency visits . 
it is an incredible amount of savings , but not one that we can get those scores for . 
and it is one of those things where , unfortunately , the political rhetoric comes through in this chamber , and i do not know of anybody who has ever been cured by a floor speech , but it certainly is one where there is just so much talk that continues on , spending too much here , spending too much there . 
we need to pay attention to spending too much . 
the problem is not what we are spending , but what we are spending it on . 
and if we are continuing to spend on wasteful or fraudulent or abusive or simply health care issues that are not taking care of the disparity of outcomes between , for example , low socioeconomic families , families that are struggling to make ends meet and feel they do not have the money to pay for their doctor visits , and those that may be in poverty , we need to work on those disparities of outcomes and make sure that we take care of those children early on ; and that is why the issue of community health centers for our kids is so critically important . 
but , again , some will say we are spending too much , causing the budget to go up , and we can not get the proper numbers . 
now , some of the public that may be listening is wondering why we are even talking about the cbo . 
but that is , unfortunately , the way this chamber operates now and that people oftentimes look at those numbers . 
we have seen tremendous inaccuracies in those numbers . 
my colleague from georgia spoke about those inaccuracies when it came to looking at things such as the death tax and them being off over $ 1 trillion in their estimates . 
but also it is one of those things in health care , too . 
think about this : if you take a medication that costs you $ 50 , but it may prevent you from having a heart attack and further hospitalizations , surgery , disability , workers comp , losing your job , having the family require other care , that is a massive amount of cost savings . 
but , instead , we may focus on only that aspect of the cost of that medication , instead of all the other costs that are saved there . 
when we look at what we are doing with children 's health , it is so critically important that we look at the big picture here as well . 
now , i am going to see if my colleague has any final comments to make in this area of health care . 
barring that , i just want to mention a couple of final comments here . 
we are certainly the stewards of the people 's money , and although we are not here to take the place of the family , we are here to do sometimes what abe lincoln said . 
president lincoln said , `` governments should do that which the people can not do for themselves. '' now , in the areas of such things as food and consumption , people and parents ought to be watching what they eat . 
well , what we also ought to be doing ourselves is working along with physicians and schoolteachers and people in the community to make sure our kids are healthy and safe and exercise and eat right . 
but we also have to make sure we are working at comprehensive care , real patient care models , that involves nutrition and exercise and prevention and mental health , and integrated care of all of those things together . 
if we are truly going to do what is right and decent and honorable for the next generation , it is a matter of doing what is right in health care . 
it is a matter of pooling our resources together and looking at the answers , to be science-based and not emotion-based on this . 
the science tells us we have things we can do , but we are not yet doing . 
the science tells us when it comes to managing the disease it is not appropriate to just look at that individual disease , but to see how it operates in the context of the child and their family . 
this is true compassion . 
this is where we will save lives . 
this is where we will save money . 
this is where if we do things like looking at electronic medical records , and make sure that every hospital around the nation has this , and providers and pharmacists have these , you can find out these things and work on them together . 
that is what takes place in states like nebraska and other hospitals around the nation . 
we have here an opportunity to make a huge difference , to save lives by the hundreds of thousands , and to save money by the hundreds of billions of dollars . 
we have that opportunity before us . 
the question is , will we have the courage to work together in a bipartisan manner to do it ? 
my hope is that our colleagues drop the gloves on this , put down the swords , stop looking for opportunities to send out sound bytes and to have people make phone calls and use it as political fodder , but instead to be able to look our constituents in the eye and say when we were all here , when we were all granted the authority to do something about america , we took an opportunity to save lives and save money , and we ought to start with our children . 
i thank my colleagues . 
