Better Healthcare Newsletter from Patrick Malone As the New
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Subscribe Past Issues Translate RSS Hi, just a reminder that you're receiving this email because you have expressed an interest in Patrick Malone & Associates. Don't forget to add [email protected] to your address book so we'll be sure to land in your inbox! You may unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive our emails. Call Us Today 202-742-1500 Better Healthcare Newsletter from Patrick Malone IN THIS ISSUE As the new administration settles in, differences will be stark on health care Why's this doc smiling? Science is back ... Biden will reverse predecessor's policies and set new priorities in health care Improving U.S. health: an expansive view Data will be in high Health care has dominated national politics for more than a decade. demand Voters told pollsters it was a top concern heading into the 2020 campaign, and that only intensified with the coronavirus pandemic. As What's the future for the new administration launches, this is a good time to look at departing officials? the health care agenda and how it differs from the last administration. The constant tumult of the recent years provides a warning, though, BY THE that political prognosticating can be uncertain, at best. NUMBERS Still, broad outlines have emerged already about stark differences that should define the 46th versus the 45th presidency. These will have 2.3 million direct effects on your finances, health, and well-being, so let’s jump into Increased number of a longer view of Bidenhealth and what it may mean to the country. Americans who were uninsured, going into the pandemic As the new administration settles in, differences will be stark on health care 1.3 years Estimated 'enormous' overall decline in 2020 in U.S. life expectancy, chiefly due to the Covid- 19. Its impact ~10x as large as 'worrisome' annual decreases several years ago. Black and Latino life expectancy declines estimated to be 3x-4x greater. $8,000 Annual 'tax' or 'foreign tribute' that two The new administration, unlike the regime that just exited, considers prominent economists health care a right, not a privilege. That has a lot of practical say Americans pay for health care in world's implications. most expensive system — which is $1 President Biden and his Democratic colleagues believe that trillion more than government can play an effective role in improving people's health, Switzerland's, which is notably by expanding the access to health care and improving its next most costly. affordability. They have committed to decision- and policy-making rooted in facts, 55% evidence, and science. Percentage increase over last decade in cost They are experienced in governing and legislating — and they are of employer-provided eager to use and to build up rather than to oppose, attack, or dismantle health insurance, relied on by 150 million-plus federal agencies. Americans. Soaring cost was more than 2x pace The new administration has not started with picking fights with the poor of inflation and wages and less affluent, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and communities of and far more than any color. other type of coverage, including Medicare, This presidential term likely will see Medicaid and an emphasis on not only direct individually purchased insurance on ACA health issues but also efforts to deal exchanges with social determinants of health — with the president emphatic about his commitment to addressing climate change and improving the environment, as well as attacking QUICK LINKS racism, poverty, sexism, and economic inequity. Our firm's website Read an excerpt from Telling experiences Patrick Malone's book: Because presidents set the tone of their administrations from the top, The life you save important insights can be gained from Biden’s own deeply personal experiences with health care and health insurance. He has seen the Nine Steps system work in shattering circumstance and praises it for how it to Finding the Best performed for him in two of the worst moments of his life — when, as a Medical Care — newly elected senator in 1972, his wife and daughter were killed and and Avoiding the Worst his two sons were seriously injured in a car wreck, and during the terminal brain cancer of Beau, 46, his oldest son. Biden has spent decades in the Senate, steeping himself in the intricacies of health care policy and laws, as well as the people who are involved in the many sides of disputes in these areas. While his party has moved, politically speaking, to the left on health care overall, Biden has stuck to centrist or center-left views. As the No. 2 in the administration that pushed through the landmark Affordable Care Act, Biden is an enthusiast for Obamacare and sees it, for now, as a cornerstone of his approach to health coverage. During the campaign, he made it clear that he would not embrace a national single-payer plan, the progressive left’s so-called Medicare for All proposal. The president, as an elite politician, has a healthy ego. He differs from his predecessor, though, in encouraging his own people and experts to take the spotlight in campaigning for his administration’s goals. Biden LEARN MORE drew fire from friends and opponents alike in recent times, because of his willingness to go silent while undertaking important behind-the- scenes toil, while others want their chief executive to dominate the air waves or be a social media darling. Biden has experienced how crucial it can be to allow an administration’s top people to hash out in messy but collegial fashion their policies, strategies, and tactics ahead of their public reveal. His record shows he can be persistent and knows, especially as a leader, how to stay engaged and not, as his predecessor did, to careen from one priority to the next. Read our Patient Safety Blog, which has news Still, Biden and company must tackle mountains of crises, many related and practical advice to the coronavirus pandemic and health care, including a reeling from the frontlines of medicine for how to economy, record-setting joblessness, widespread hunger, huge fears become a smarter, about evictions, and, of course, a nation riven by politics as well as healthier patient. racial and economic inequities. His hopes to get the nation to a better place, especially after the pandemic, may be checked or stopped altogether by formidable Republican opposition. Why's this doc smiling? Science is back... PAST ISSUES Our annual review of simple stuff to win better health. Simple steps to strengthen resilience in these tough pandemic times When facts don't matter: Public is harmed when politicians bash U.S. health agencies, especially in a pandemic. World sees a sickly U.S. health system, wobbling in pandemic and a Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, has divisive election surprised himself, his family, and commentators by his changed public The Covid-19 vaccine: mien since the Biden Administration began. Fauci has been relaxed, Will 'warp speed' smiling, and candid without caveats as he delivers still-grim news about produce safe, effective protection for billions? the terrible toll the coronavirus continues to take on the country. You Can Eat This... But He said at a recent press briefing that, unlike his year with the 45th Why Would You? leader of the nation, he feels “liberated” by Biden. Looking Ahead: Preparing for Long- “I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the Term Care president,” Fauci said, adding that he felt free under Biden to speak without ‘repercussions’ … ‘The idea that you can get up here and talk Managing Chronic Pain: about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is, and It’s Complicated know that’s it — let the science speak — it is somewhat of a liberating Secure Health Records: feeling. One of the new things in this administration is if you don’t have A Matter of Privacy and the answer, don’t guess. Just say you don’t know the answer.’” Safety Biden has been emphatic that his team will make policy and decisions Standing Tall Against a based on facts and evidence. They have pledged to rebuild and rely on Fall federal departments — especially health-related operations battered in More... the last regime — like the giant Health and Human Services agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A Cabinet-level commitment The new president underscored his team’s commitment to science (and medical science) by elevating to the Cabinet level his nominee as his top science advisor: Eric S. Lander — director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The New York Times also reported that: “Alondra Nelson, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., and president of the Social Science Research Council in Brooklyn, will serve as deputy director for the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Frances H. Arnold and Maria Zuber will serve as the external co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a council of prominent eminent volunteer experts from outside the federal government. Dr. Arnold, a protein scientist at Caltech, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, only the fifth woman to do so. Dr. Zuber, vice president for research at MIT, was the first woman to lead a NASA spacecraft mission.” The early leadership picks In his early health-specific appointments, focusing in particular on pandemic response, Biden not only tapped Fauci as chief Covid-19 adviser, but also: Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general and a former congressman, to lead the Health and Human Services Department Dr.