March 2, 2022 – Past COVID-19, President Joe Biden on Tuesday hit on a number of different well being care priorities in his first State of the Union, together with a warning that the administration would scrutinize non-public investor possession of nursing properties and that Medicare was going to “set greater requirements for nursing properties and ensure your family members get the care they deserve and count on.”
Biden, in his tackle to a joint session of Congress, additionally pledged to guard entry to well being care, to protect a “girl’s proper to decide on,” to advance maternal well being care, and to guard youthful transgender People, calling a spate of state legal guidelines concentrating on them “flawed.”
The president additionally stated he was doubling down on the Most cancers Moonshot program’s promise “to finish most cancers as we all know it,” asking Congress to fund his proposed Superior Analysis Tasks Company for Well being, which might be tasked with discovering breakthroughs associated to most cancers, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and different ailments.
What’s extra, Biden stated he plans to behave to “do away with outdated guidelines that cease medical doctors from prescribing therapies” for opioid dependancy.
“I consider in restoration, and I rejoice the 23 million People in restoration,” he stated.
The State of the Union tackle got here after the administration earlier within the day introduced a new effort to improve Americans’ mental health, and stated the White Home would work with Congress to broaden telehealth and combine psychological well being with main care. Biden’s fiscal 2023 price range, which might take impact Oct. 1, will double funding for main and behavioral well being integration applications.
Acknowledging State of the Union visitor Frances Haugen, a former Fb worker who uncovered the corporate’s algorithms concentrating on kids, Biden stated, “We should maintain social media platforms accountable for the nationwide experiment they’re conducting on our kids for revenue.”
“It’s time to strengthen privateness protections, ban focused promoting to kids, demand tech corporations cease gathering private knowledge on our kids,” he stated.
In response to this a part of the president’s tackle, American Academy of Pediatrics President Moira Szilagyi, MD, stated in a press release that the group was completely satisfied the administration was proposing to “shield the digital privateness and well-being of youngsters and adolescents.”
Final fall, the AAP made a nationwide emergency declaration on kids’s psychological well being as a result of the pandemic worsened psychological well being points. Szilagyi stated the AAP “welcomes tonight’s recognition of youngsters’s psychological well being as a nationwide precedence and appears ahead to what comes subsequent.”
The American Psychological Affiliation and the American Medical Affiliation additionally applauded Biden’s psychological well being proposals, particularly for elevating kids’s wants.
“COVID-19 has had a devastating influence on psychological well being, particularly for school-aged kids and for communities which were traditionally marginalized or minoritized,” AMA President Gerald E. Harmon, MD, stated in a statement.
However the star of the night gave the impression to be Joshua Davis, a seventh grader with sort 1 diabetes who beamed from the primary woman’s field as Biden spoke.
“For Joshua, and for the 200,000 different younger folks with sort 1 diabetes, let’s cap the price of insulin at $35 a month so everybody can afford it,” the president stated throughout the tackle.
“Drug corporations will nonetheless do very properly,” he stated, noting that Medicare ought to be allowed to barter decrease costs for pharmaceuticals.
The insulin cap proposal — just for these with non-public insurance coverage — is contained in Biden’s Construct Again Higher plan, which has been stymied within the Senate.
The Endocrine Society praised Biden for saying he’ll tackle drug prices, notably insulin.
In a statement, the society famous that greater than 37 million People have diabetes, with 3 million beginning on insulin inside a yr of being recognized.
These with sort 1 depend on insulin to outlive, the society stated.
“We urge Congress to come back collectively and go laws to make insulin reasonably priced as quickly as potential,” stated the assertion.
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