ICYMI: "Biden leaves behind a remarkable legacy in public health"

In case you missed it, in a new Washington Post column Leana Wen details President Biden's remarkable legacy of improving the nation's health. President Biden's accomplishments include: bringing down the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for Americans for the first time in history and adding a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on prescription drugs costs which has taken effect this year, and taking action to reduce overdose deaths, leading to a 17% reduction in overdose deaths in the 12 months ending July 2024 compared to the prior year—the largest decline in U.S. history. And just this week, the Biden Harris Administration announced an all-time record of nearly 24 million Americans enrolled in Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage. All these actions and more are described in a new White House report on health care in the Biden-Harris Administration.

Read more below:

Washington Post (Opinion): Biden leaves behind a remarkable legacy in public health
[Leana S. Wen, 1/10/24]

From cutting drug costs to reducing overdose deaths, the outgoing president has improved the nation's health.

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History will remember Biden for his aggressive actions against covid-19, most notably for his part in a mass vaccination campaign that saved an estimated 3.2 million Americans in two years. But his work on health matters went far beyond the coronavirus pandemic. Two areas that deserve highlighting are his efforts to curb the opioid epidemic and to make prescription drugs more affordable.

When Biden's term started, the number of overdose deaths was skyrocketing at a relentless 31 percent a year. The administration's bold overdose prevention efforts contributed to a remarkable reversal. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the year ending in June saw a 14.5 percent decrease in overdose deaths. This is the single-largest recorded reduction in U.S. history. It is also the first time since 2018 that the country has seen a decline.

Rahul Gupta, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, attributes the turnaround to multiple efforts that focused on reducing the harm of drugs and treating rather than criminalizing the disease of addiction. This included making naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote, available over the counter, which I and other advocates have long pushed for.

Biden's administration also removed roadblocks to treatment access. For instance, a long-standing requirement for providers to obtain a license, called an X-waiver, to prescribe a highly effective medication used to treat opioid addiction made it difficult for people to find doctors who could prescribe this evidence-based treatment. Two years after Biden lifted this unnecessary requirement, the number of eligible clinicians went up 15-fold, Gupta told me.

In addition, the administration made permanent telehealth provisions that made care more accessible and changed regulations to let more people in jails and prisons receive addiction treatment. And it addressed demand for opioids by working to curtail the supply. In fact, it seized more illicit fentanyl at U.S. ports of entry in two years than in the previous five years combined.

Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to cut prescription drug costs for seniors. His signature achievement, the Inflation Reduction Act, contained numerous provisions to make it easier for older adults to afford medications. One of them is a cap on out-of-pocket spending for those enrolled in Medicare Part D. For the first time since this program started, there is now a limit to how much seniors must pay. In 2024, the annual cap was $3,500; in 2025, it's $2,000. That means no one with Part D has to pay more than $2,000 a year for prescription drugs.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), told me that the average Medicare beneficiary takes seven or more drugs. The costs of those prescriptions balloon quickly, she said, especially with specialty medications that can cost thousands of dollars per year.

Brooks-LaSure shared heartbreaking stories of people she met who questioned whether their lives were worth their loved ones spending their savings on. She recounted one woman who broke down in tears when she realized she would no longer have to choose between taking medications and bankrupting her family.

Last year, nearly 1.5 million Part D enrollees hit the $3,500 cap by June 30 and did not need to pay for their drugs over the next six months. This year, the $2,000 cap is expected to lower out-of-pocket costs for 19 million people.

In 2026, there will be additional savings because of another historic "first": Medicare has been allowed to negotiate the prices of drugs with manufacturers. For the first 10 drugs that the administration selected to negotiate, prices for Medicare beneficiaries are 38 to 79 percent lower than list prices. Approximately 9 million people will see a direct benefit, with more to come as CMS is slated to add 15 more drugs next month.

These triumphs exemplify what has made Biden an exemplary president on public health. He came into office with the goal of tackling difficult issues. He hired an experienced and capable team that used the levers of government to identify barriers and change regulations, often enlisting the private sector to work together toward his goals.

Crucially, he never lost focus on his North Star. As Gupta said, more than 19,000 Americans a year are at dinner tables with their families because they didn't die from overdose. I'm confident such an achievement is what motivated Biden to become president.