IV

103D CONGRESS

2D SESSION H. CON. RES. 243

Expressing the sense of the Congress that any legislation that is enacted

to provide for national health care reform should provide for compensation for poison control center services, and that a commission should

be established to study the delivery and funding of poison control services.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

APRIL 26, 1994

Mr. TOWNS (for himself, Mrs. BYRNE, Miss COLLINS of Michigan, Ms.

MARGOLIES-MEZVINSKY, Mrs. MORELLA, Ms. NORTON, and Mr. PAYNE

of New Jersey) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was

referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the Congress that any legislation

that is enacted to provide for national health care reform

should provide for compensation for poison control center

services, and that a commission should be established

to study the delivery and funding of poison control services.

Whereas poisoning remains a significant public health problem in the United States, especially for children;

Whereas, in 1991 alone, more than 13,000 persons died in

the United States due to poisoning, including approximately 6,400 persons who died from unintentional poisoning;
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Whereas 60 percent of the 2,400,000 poison exposure cases

reported to poison control centers in 1992 involved children younger than 6 years of age;

Whereas poison control centers save lives by providing free

first-aid advice over the telephone to poison victims,

health care professionals, and frightened parents of

poisoned children;

Whereas physicians, hospitals, public health departments, and

the public depend on poison control centers to provide indispensable emergency advice and treatment information

for poisonings, and to be available 24 hours during each

day of the year;

Whereas no other community health care service has the facilities and expertise to monitor the hundreds of thousands of consumer products with which children are unintentionally poisoned every day, or to provide the proper

antidote advice when a person has been exposed to such

consumer products;

Whereas poison control centers across the country are closing

or drastically reducing the services they provide, due to

misguided attempts by hospitals and States to save

money;

Whereas approximately 1⁄2 of the 38 poison control centers in

the Nation that meet national standards are in financial

jeopardy, and lack of funding has caused some poison

control centers to stop answering some emergency telephone calls;

Whereas many hospitals have stopped funding poison control

centers because of funding constraints and because most

poison control centers serve a wider geographic area than

is served by any 1 hospital;
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Whereas closing poison control centers increases the cost of

health care, and needlessly places the lives of millions of

children at risk;

Whereas poison control centers are cost efficient and economical because over 70 percent of the cases assisted by

poison centers are resolved over the telephone while the

patient is in the patient’s own home, which avoids unnecessary emergency room visits, ambulance use, and hospital admissions;

Whereas every $1.00 spent on poison control centers saves at

least $7.75 in health care costs;

Whereas, if poison control centers were not available,

600,000 additional poisoning victims would be unnecessarily treated in hospitals each year, at a much higher

cost than the cost of assistance by a poison control center;

Whereas health care for Americans will cost $545,000,000

less each year if access to quality poison control centers

is provided to all Americans than if no such access is provided, even after the costs of providing poison control

center services are considered; and

Whereas Federal leadership in the funding plight of the Nation’s poison control centers has been nonexistent: Now,

therefore, be it

1 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate

2 concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that—

3 (1) any legislation that is enacted to provide for

4 national health care reform should contain provi5 sions that ensure that qualified poison control cen6 ters that meet national standards and are certified
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1 by the American Association of Poison Control Cen2 ters are fairly and adequately compensated by means

3 that may include—

4 (A) a fee for service mechanism under

5 which each health benefit plan would pay a fee

6 for each service rendered by a poison control

7 center to a member of the plan;

8 (B) a per capita mechanism, under which

9 each health benefit plan would pay a negotiated

10 or predetermined amount, based on the number

11 of members in the plan or the amount of poison

12 control center services used by members of the

13 plan in the past, to support poison control cen14 ters; or

15 (C) an expanded public health program, in16 cluding a program of Federal or State matching

17 grants; and

18 (2) a national commission should be estab19 lished, under the auspices of the Public Health Serv20 ice or in any other appropriate format, to study the

21 delivery and funding of poison control services, in22 cluding—

23 (A) means to maximize the use of informa24 tion technologies in the delivery of poison con25 trol services; and
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1 (B) possible use of a nationwide, toll-free

2 telephone number as a means for the public to

3 receive poison control services.

Æ