Non-COVID Highlights From Biden’s State of the Union Address
March 2, 2022 — In addition to COVID-19, President Joe Biden on Tuesday touched on several other health care priorities in his first state of the Union, including a warning that the administration will scrutinize private investor ownership of nursing homes and that Medicare is going to “Set higher standards for nursing homes and make sure your loved ones get the care they deserve and expect.”
What’s more, Biden said he plans to act to “get rid of outdated regulations that prevent doctors from prescribing treatment” for opioid addiction.
Appreciating State of the Union guest Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who exposed the company’s algorithms targeting children, Biden said, “We need to hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they are running on our children for profit.”
“The time has come to strengthen privacy protections, to ban targeted advertising for children, to require technology companies to stop collecting personal data about our children,” he said.
In response to this part of the President’s address, American Academy of Pediatrics President Moira Silaji, MD, said in a statement that the group welcomes the administration’s proposal to “protect the digital privacy and well-being of children and teens.”
“COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on mental health, especially in school-age children and in communities that have historically been marginalized or minorities,” said AMA President Gerald E. Harmon, MD, in his report. statement.
But the star of the evening appeared to be Joshua Davis, a seventh-grader with type 1 diabetes who beamed from the First Lady’s box when Biden spoke.
“For Joshua and 200,000 other young people with type 1 diabetes, let’s cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month so everyone can afford it,” the president said during his speech.
Biden was praised by the Endocrine Society for saying he would take care of the drug costs, especially insulin.
IN statementThe Society noted that more than 37 million Americans have diabetes, with 3 million starting insulin within a year of being diagnosed. Society has stated that people with type 1 rely on insulin to survive.
“We urge Congress to get together and pass legislation as soon as possible to make insulin affordable,” the statement said.
