DC Journal Op-Ed: The State of the Union for American Patients is Bleak

In regard to the state of America’s healthcare system, President Joe Biden’s annual address to the nation was a desperate display of wishful thinking, deep denial, and grasping whatever best-case scenarios could be found. At a critical moment for our leader to set forth methodical policies that could result in measurable goals—in this case, more cures—Americans were instead told two election-year fairytales.

They were: His boasting over price controls in his signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and empty promises for an effective and meaningful cancer “moonshot.”

Let’s look first at his gloating about the IRA.

The IRA was a Trojan horse from the start, an excuse to jam a risky socialist policy to appear concerned about costly medicines. In reality it was just a ploy to grow the power of government. Imposing price control policy that has never worked, and a record unblemished by success.

This uncertainty placed on American medical innovation comes with a price tag that is too high to pay. Risking the breakthroughs that millions of American patients require, like me, means cures are put even further out of reach.

If the president wants credit for ensuring the cures we need are never discovered, he should just say that. You can’t pay for a medication that doesn’t exist. This is the most expensive policy.

Price controls will, and have, drastically undermined any incentive to continue innovating to provide the most cutting-edge treatment for patients. The IRA ham-handedly exerts government control on the medical discovery ecosystem, the cost of which is borne by the most vulnerable Americans.

Next, we have his words about cancer. He may have made a renewed and heartfelt appeal to battle cancer, but a sober analysis points to two glaring problems. Cancer rates are increasing on his watch, with almost no White House attention to relieving the problem.

His efforts instead undermine American leadership in developing new cancer drugs. We have seen the necessary R&D for success in battling cancer evaporate, and there have even been several trials that have been entirely canceled.

This “moonshot” is nothing more than pie in the sky.

Meanwhile, inflation is ravaging any savings and spending power, leaving patients with very little breathing room to access their treatments. As they hope for a cure for their disease to be realized, they are watching the miracle machine responsible for those discoveries sound the alarms out of fear their ability to innovate is being cut off.

Why?

Because the hard-fought bipartisan policy, which led to lifesaving drug innovations like the ones millions rely on, was scuttled, overthrown by the IRA with barely a public discussion. Is it any wonder why the scheme enacted is failing so miserably?

But soon after the president signed it into law, it occurred to his administration that patients should have a say. Considering we are downstream from its implications, it was the least they could do. As a patient who requires cutting-edge drugs to fight my Multiple Sclerosis (MS), I participated in these sessions. We were allotted 90 seconds, barely an elevator pitch, to explain why the creation and use of a medicine is vital to our health – as if three minutes can convey the value of a life saved, extended, and lived. Those one-way Zoom meetings were not the way good public policy is made. Certainly not the treatment patients deserved.

The truth is –for patients–the State of our Union has rarely been more bleak. Biden needs to do what is best for the country, own the mistakes that have occurred on his watch, and address the IRA’s failures before it is too late.

Three years have wrought a record that can’t be talked your way out of. It’s time for hard truths, something many Americans have had to face in their lives. If we’re going to solve problems, it’s a discussion we deserve.

John Czwartacki is the Founder and Chairman of Survivors for Solutions, a nonpartisan, nonprofit patient advocacy organization that seeks to preserve and protect the medical innovations that give patients hope.

Read the op-ed in the DC Journal here.