In July, 2023 President Joe Biden’s Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of an over-the-counter birth control pill marketed as Opill in the US. As of the end of March, 2024, it is available at CVS and Walgreens.
President Joe Biden’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (created during the Obama administration) has issued rules that will prevent credit agencies from including data from medical debt in its credit reports. Biden understands that, among other fallout from our very flawed healthcare system, medical debt damages patients’ credit rating, impacting other areas of their lives, and he recognizes that medical debt is not an accurate predictor of a borrower’s likelihood of paying back a loan, The CFPB estimates over 20,000 more people per year will be able to obtain home loans, among other benefits.
It is Pride Month! Check out Human Rights Campaign’s list of some of the many actions taken by President Joe Biden to strengthen and defend America’s LGBTQ+ community, including strengthening the Affordable Care Act to address discrimination in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, expanding Title IX (discussed here previously), and restoring Health and Human Services protections stripped away by former president Trump.
National Atlas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
President Joe Biden has brought a strong focus to Michigan, investing heavily in health care, the environment, education, transportation, child care, and more. The numbers and the project are here.
President Joe Biden’s administration has promulgated rules limiting miner’s exposure to toxic silica dust, which causes potentially fatal respiratory issues. These issues in mines have been known for 50 years. The Biden Administration finally took action.
President Joe Biden has directed nearly $17b in funding to the Keystone State for energy conservation, clean water, more affordable medications, improved roads and bridges, better internet connectivity, and may more areas. “Infrastructure Week may have been a punchline but no more,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian said on a conference call with reporters.
True to his word, President Joe Biden is moving the DEA to take cannabis off of the most restricted drug list — Schedule 1 — and moving it to Schedule III. This move would make it easier to research the effects of cannabis, and would federally recognize and decriminalize its medical use. It will also clear federal resources to deal with actual serious drugs like fentanyl. Should cannabis be legal? Of course. But, this is the biggest federal step in that direction in over 50 years.
On March 18, 2024, President Joe Biden signed an executive order significantly expanding women’s health care research, as well as 20 additional actions in various federal agencies targeting improvements in women’s health, including $200 million for research at the National Institute of Health.
The new regulations, issued by the EPA under the direction of President Joe Biden, will primarily affect people living near industrial sites. Those people are disproportionately poor and people of color. The new rule would, among other things, cut toxic pollutants by 6,200 tons annually and reduce emissions of ethylene oxide and chloroprene by 80 percent. Biden again demonstrates that he is making government work for all Americans, in that these regulations will largely benefit communities in Louisiana, Texas, other locations on the Gulf Coast, West Virginia, and the Ohio River Valley, predominantly red states Biden is aware will not be voting for him in November. A more detailed list of the regulations is in this EPA Press Release.
On April 10, 2024, the EPA, at the direction of President Joe Biden, has set stringent new standards regarding the presence of certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, in the US drinking water supply. This is the first time the US has ever regulated these toxic, cancer-causing chemicals. The Biden Administration is deploying funds allocated in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help fund states’ efforts to test and treat their local water supplies to attempt to eliminate PFAs.
President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which accomplishes many things in many areas of the economy, some of which have already been discussed here. Among the provisions is the cap on prescription drug expenses for Medicare Part D enrollees at $2,000 a year, starting next year.
Throughout his presidency, President Joe Biden, with the help of Vice President Kamala Harris, has been incredibly active through executive orders in battling the loss of Roe v. Wade and the statewide iniatives designed to deny women health care, including abortions, access to contraception, safeguarding patient privacy, and sensitive health information. Initiatives include protecting the right to travel, providing services to veterans, current service members, and emergency abortion care.
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden enables Medicare to negotiate certain prescription drug prices, picking ten of the most purchased drugs on the market, starting in 2026. More drugs are intended to be part of this program each year.
The national uninsured rate reached an all time low in 2023, as a result of the ACA and the Biden Administration efforts to reach out to uninsured people. The Inflation Reduction Act aided significantly in this program.
Finally, a president takes executive action relating to the failed drug war. President Joe Biden does it twice. Thousands of people are affected by the order. Also, Biden has been lobbying state governors and his regulators are making noises about reviewing cannabis’ Schedule 1 classification, with an eye toward rescheduling it as a Schedule 3 drug. Baby steps, to be sure, but finally a move in the right direction.
Within 60 days of taking office, President Joe Biden signed into law The American Rescue Plan.
Among the many important provisions it contains are:
Ripped from today’s (well, now yesterday’s) headlines. President Joe Biden has been pushing the elimination of lead pipes from our nation’s infrastructure since he took office, and continues that effort today, with the allocation of an additional $5.8 billion for this effort. This funding comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, out-of-pocket costs for insulin are capped at $35 per month prescription for enrollees of Medicare Part B and Part D.
Although President Joe Biden wasn’t able to extend that cap to people not on Medicare in the IRA, the political pressure he has brought to this fight has caused major drug manufacturers to cap the cost of prescriptions for insulin to $35 per month for millions of people not on Medicare.
