The life and death stories coming out of Ukraine, as its people continue to exhibit fierce and inspirational resistance to Vlad the Invader’s barbaric onslaught, tend to suck the air out of any room. Somehow, Joe Biden’s approval ratings, or America’s vitriolic partisan divide, or who will prevail in the midterms or the desperate state of our infrastructure, or the future of our newest Supreme Court nominee, while important at any other time, just cannot compete with Putin’s intentional and indiscriminate killing of anyone, man, woman, child, beloved pet, anyone in the way of his rapacious army. This is causing the most momentous change on the European continent and throughout the geopolitical world in nearly 80 years. And it’s taken only a week.
So, here are some quick takes of the things I would have written about, and maybe will in the future in more depth, were it not for the blackhole-like gravity of what’s happening in Ukraine.
Tuesday night’s State of the Union
Joe Biden’s speech to the Congress and the nation came in two chapters. Chapter One: Ukraine. Chapter Two: His domestic agenda.
Chapter One was riveting, and it appeared nearly everyone sitting on the floor and in the gallery of the House of Representatives was united in support of the West’s monumental pushback to Vlad the Villain. I thought it ironic they were all sitting in a sacred building where, just 14 months ago fellow citizens tried to steal American democracy, and nearly did. Ironic, indeed, when one considers so many who were sitting on the R side of the aisle now want to look the other way and pretend it never happened.
Chapter Two was pretty much what you’d expect from any State of the Union speech — until the heckling. Representatives Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga, put on a disgusting display of crass and boorish incivility. These two ladies have never demonstrated having had an original idea in their lives. Why should they? They’re both travelling on borrowed gas, and inferior gas, at that. Boebert, especially, raised poor taste to a new level when she screamed out accusing Biden of killing 13 soldiers during the evacuation of Afghanistan as he was describing the death of his beloved son, Beau, from cancer attributable to burn pits in wartime. These two, both of whom have about as much empathy as a New Jersey loan shark, would be rejected from Dante’s Inferno for giving the place a bad name. (Pity the poor fellow sitting between them wishing he were anywhere else on earth — except maybe Ukraine)
Why can’t Medicare negotiate drug prices?
When you insure more than 61.2 million beneficiaries you’d think you’d have tremendous leverage to negotiate the lowest drug prices on earth. But that is not the case in the USA.
The Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003, the one that created the unfunded Part D drug program along with the infamous “doughnut hole,” specifically forbids Medicare from negotiating prices with drug companies, giving that responsibility, instead, to for-profit insurers and Pharmacy Benefit Managers. Health policy Guru John C. Goodman calls the MMA, “arguably the worst domestic policy decision in the history of the country.” At the time of enactment, the Social Security and Medicare Trustees estimated the long-term (75 years) unfunded liability of the MMA’s Part D program to be $17 trillion. The Trustees project that cost growth over the next 5 years will average 7.3 percent for Part D, significantly faster than the projected average annual GDP growth rate of 4.3 percent over the period.
And, still, Medicare cannot negotiate prices. Result? High drug prices for Medicare and its beneficiaries.
By contrast, the VA is able to negotiate for its nine million veterans enrolled in its health care program, yours truly being one of them. Result? Low cost drugs.
Since passage of the MMA, there have been repeated attempts to introduce and pass legislation that would allow Medicare to bring the full weight of its considerable power to the price of pharmaceuticals. Two things have prevented any success in these endeavors. First, the bottomless well of pharmaceutical industry cash, and, second, members of congress who are the beneficiaries of that bottomless well of cash.
To quote that eminent American philosopher, Mark Twain, “We have the best government that money can buy.”
Federally Qualified Health Centers. Now there’s a well kept secret!
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) are community-based health care providers that receive funds from the Health Center Program of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to provide primary care services in underserved areas. They must meet stringent requirements, including providing care on a sliding fee scale based on a patient’s ability to pay and operating under a governing board that includes patients. Specifically, at least 51% of their Boards must be patients.
By law, FQHCs must treat anyone, regardless of the ability to pay.
There are 1,368 FQHCs in the country. Most have a number of locations, called Service Sites, bringing the total health care locations to 14,200. They welcome people with insurance, but their main targets are poor people who could otherwise not afford health care.
In addition to FQHCs, the Health Center Program also funds Rural Health Centers (RHCs), whose mission is to increase access to primary care services for patients in rural communities.
FQHCs and RHCs are funded annually by congressional approval. Additionally, Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act provides grant awards to eligible health centers and outlines the requirements the centers must meet to be eligible .
Taken together, FQHCs and RHCs are Community Health Centers. They are ubiquitous throughout the country. For example, in my home state of Massachusetts, there are 52 community health center organizations providing high quality health care to some one million state residents through more than 300 sites statewide. For perspective, there are 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
Given the woeful state of our nation’s public health system, as was amply demonstrated by our response to COVID-19, it might not be a bad idea to consider the Community Health Center model as we attempt to re-engineer how we deliver health care to all of us.
Just a thought.
