Non-COVID Highlights From Biden’s State of the Union Tackle
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 increased requirements for nursing properties and ensure your family members get the care they deserve and count on.”
Biden, in his deal with 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 Individuals, calling a spate of state legal guidelines concentrating on them “mistaken.”
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 Initiatives 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What’s extra, Biden stated he plans to behave to “eliminate outdated guidelines that cease medical doctors from prescribing therapies” for opioid dependancy.
“I consider in restoration, and I have fun the 23 million Individuals in restoration,” he stated.
The State of the Union deal with 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 increase telehealth and combine psychological well being with major care. Biden’s fiscal 2023 finances, which might take impact Oct. 1, will double funding for major 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 youngsters, 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 youngsters, demand tech firms cease amassing private information on our kids,” he stated.
In response to this a part of the president’s deal with, American Academy of Pediatrics President Moira Szilagyi, MD, stated in a press release that the group was comfortable the administration was proposing to “defend the digital privateness and well-being of kids and adolescents.”
Final fall, the AAP made a nationwide emergency declaration on youngsters’s psychological well being as a result of the pandemic worsened psychological well being points. Szilagyi stated the AAP “welcomes tonight’s recognition of kids’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 youngsters’s wants.
“COVID-19 has had a devastating affect on psychological well being, particularly for school-aged youngsters 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 appeared to be Joshua Davis, a seventh grader with kind 1 diabetes who beamed from the primary girl’s field as Biden spoke.
“For Joshua, and for the 200,000 different younger individuals with kind 1 diabetes, let’s cap the price of insulin at $35 a month so everybody can afford it,” the president stated throughout the deal with.
“Drug firms will nonetheless do very effectively,” he stated, noting that Medicare needs 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, significantly insulin.
In a statement, the society famous that greater than 37 million Individuals have diabetes, with 3 million beginning on insulin inside a 12 months of being recognized.
These with kind 1 depend on insulin to outlive, the society stated.
“We urge Congress to come back collectively and go laws to make insulin inexpensive as quickly as doable,” stated the assertion.
