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‘THE ELEPHANT THAT DOESN’T EVEN FIT IN THIS ROOM’: Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar frequently talks about long-term care on the campaign trail, and on Tuesday night she had the opportunity to briefly raise the issue during the Democratic debate in Des Moines, Iowa.
“What should we do about long-term care, the elephant that doesn’t even fit in this room?” Klobuchar asked after candidates went back and forth on “Medicare for all” and prescription drug prices. She opened up briefly about what her dad is going through in assisted living. He has long-term care insurance, and then the family will go to savings, but after that they’ll be relying on Medicaid and housing him at Catholic Charities. “Our story is better than so many other families,” Klobuchar said.
Klobuchar is right that there’s a looming caregiving and long-term care crisis as the Baby Boom generation ages and as people live longer with chronic conditions. Here are just a few statistics that help illustrate how dire the problem is:
*About 34.2 million Americans have provided unpaid care to an adult age 50 or older in the last year.
* There were seven potential family caregivers for every person over 80 in 2015. That ratio is expected to drop to four-to-one by 2030 and to 3-to-1 by 2050.
* An estimated 1.2 million new jobs are anticipated for home health and personal care aides between 2018 and 2028.
*A semi-private room in a nursing home averages $6,844 per month. For a private room, people pay an estimated $7,698.
*Only 7.2 million Americans have long-term care insurance.
*An estimated 5.8 million people have Alzheimer’s disease, a number expected to rise to 14 million by 2050.
Klobuchar has a plan to let patients stay in their homes longer by allowing caregivers to get paid leave. Her plan would incentivize employers to offer long-term care insurance, let Medicare cover more services for Alzheimer’s disease, and would expand food, housing, and transportation assistance.
Good morning and welcome to the Washington Examiner’s Daily on Healthcare! This newsletter is written by senior healthcare reporter Kimberly Leonard (@LeonardKL) and healthcare reporter Cassidy Morrison (@CassMorrison94). You can reach us with tips, calendar items, or suggestions at [email protected]. If someone forwarded you this email and you’d like to receive it regularly, you can subscribe here.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD BLASTS ABORTION OMISSION IN DEMOCRATIC DEBATE: Abortion rights was one of several topics left out during the debate in Iowa, a state in which lawmakers passed a bill that would ban abortion roughly six weeks into a pregnancy. The legislation has been held up in the courts, but other states followed soon after in a bid to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“At this critical juncture, the stakes for reproductive rights could not be higher,” said Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes. “That’s why it’s indefensible that over the course of a two hour debate, there wasn’t a single opportunity for Americans to hear how the presidential candidates will correct course and protect abortion access.”
STANTON HEALTH EYEING TITLE X FUNDS: The women’s health organization that opposes contraception and presents itself as the anti-abortion alternative to Planned Parenthood is weighing applying for federal family planning funds this year.
The organization’s founder and CEO, Brandi Swindell, told the Washington Examiner that she has met two to three times with officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and that her organization will not compromise its opposition to birth control to receive the grants.
Stanton is similar to Obria, a California anti-abortion, Christian healthcare group which received $1.7 million in Title X grants last year after it agreed to contract with a provider that does provide birth control. But Stanton doesn’t want to agree to a similar arrangement if it decides to apply for the grant. Swindell is optimistic there might be “creative solutions” that would still allow Stanton to get the grants without providing birth control but said it was too early to share what those might be.
DID WALDEN BRING POT COOKIES TO THE CANNABIS HEARING? The top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Greg Walden, faked out members at a Health Subcommittee hearing Wednesday when he held up a cookie in a Ziplock bag that appeared to have marijuana in it. “In Oregon, you can purchase a range of THC-infused products, like these cookies… each of you has a cookie right in front of you,” he said. But it turns out the cookies are, “as far as I know… just a cookie.” Walden was trying to make a point about how kids might come across THC-laced cookies without knowing it, and said that lawmakers need more research on the amount of THC in edibles. At the conclusion of his opening statement, Walden said: “You can eat your cookies now.”
HOUSE COMPANION TO HSA BILL LANDS: Republican Chip Roy on Wednesday introduced the Personalized Care Act, which would expand the use of health savings accounts. The bill would increase contribution limits and allow HSAs to be used to pay premiums and over-the-counter medications. Ted Cruz and Mike Braun introduced the Senate version, and Roy has spoken to the Washington Examiner before about how he sees the expansion of HSAs as an alternative to Obamacare for Republicans to unite behind.
HOUSE COMMITTEE LEADERS URGE STRONGER ACTION AGAINST METH AND COCAINE USE: Bipartisan leaders on the Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to Health and Human Services and other relevant agencies about the need to focus more resources on combating a rise in meth and cocaine abuse, in addition to working to stem the opioid epidemic. “We are concerned that while the nation, rightly so, is devoting much of its attention and resources to the opioid epidemic, another epidemic — this one involving cocaine and methamphetamine — is on the rise,” wrote committee leaders, including Democrats Frank Pallone and Anna Eshoo and Republicans Michael Burgess and Brett Guthrie.
Methamphetamine, in particular, has become more accessible to people in urban areas, having in the past been more prevalent in rural areas – think Breaking Bad-style manufacturing labs. According to the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, About 684,000 people said they abused meth in 2016. That number swelled to 964,000 in 2017 and 1.1 million in 2018 — almost double the number of people who reported heroin abuse (526,000). Dr. Martin Huecker, an emergency department physician at the University of Louisville Health Sciences Center told Cassidy in November that he sees on average 10 methamphetamine addicts in the ER each month, sometimes even three or four during an eight-hour shift.
CALIFORNIA STATE SENATORS INTRODUCE MENTAL HEALTH PARITY BILL: Democratic California Sens. Jim Beall and Scott Wiener introduced a bill mandating California insurance companies to cover all mental health and substance use disorder treatments, including medication-assisted treatments like Methadone for those struggling with opioid addiction. The bill states that insurers will no longer require prior authorization when a person is prescribed an FDA-approved treatment for substance use disorder. The bill’s goal is to make insurers cover mental illness treatment the same as they would a physiological disease.
PEOPLE ARE DRINKING THE MOST ALCOHOL SINCE THE TIME OF PROHIBITION: The amount of alcohol that Americans consume annually has reached 2.3 gallons on average — compare to average consumption in 1910 of just under two gallons — according to The Associated Press. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also found that from the years 2006 to 2010, about 88,000 people died each year from alcohol abuse.
TWO MORE MARCH FOR LIFE RALLY SPEAKERS, BOTH LOUISIANANS: Anti-abortion group March for Life has announced two additional speakers at the Jan. 24 rally in D.C. The first is First Lady of Louisiana Donna Hutto Edwards, who is the wife of John Bel Edwards, the anti-abortion Democratic governor. In addition, House Minority Whip and Louisiana native Steve Scalise will address the crowd.
Interesting choices: The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in March in the case of June Medical Services v. Gee, which reexamines a ruling the Supreme Court issued in 2016 when it overturned a Texas law that required doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges to local hospitals. Louisiana passed a similar law that was then upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which helped to necessitate the Supreme Court taking it up again.
The Rundown
Politico Trump to lift hold on $8.2B in Puerto Rico disaster aid
Kaiser Health News Sanders targets health industry profits. Are his figures right?
The Washington Post More than 100 billion pain pills saturated the nation over nine years
Stat ‘How long do I have?’ A website on cancer survival rates, from the co-founder of GoodRx, seeks to provide clarity
ProPublica Border Patrol officials dodged Congress’ questions about migrant children’s deaths
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | Jan. 15
Jan. 13-16. San Francisco. JPMorgan Chase & Co. 38th Annual Healthcare Conference. Details.
10 a.m. 2123 Rayburn. Energy and Commerce’s Health Subcommittee hearing on “Cannabis Policies for the New Decade.” Tune in.
Noon. Cato Institute event on “Needle Exchange Programs: Benefits and Challenges,” with Surgeon General Jerome Adams. Details.
THURSDAY | Jan. 16
8 a.m.-4 p.m. The Spy Museum. 700 L’Enfant Plaza SW. Council for Affordable Health Coverage event on “The Price of Good Health.” Details.
