DOJ will name a prosecutor for pandemic fraud, Biden says in State of the Union address
Biden says his top priority is getting prices under control, including drug prices.
Photo: C-Span
The Department of Justice will soon name a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud, President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address Tuesday.
"We are going to go after the criminals who stole billions of relief money meant for small businesses and millions of Americans," Biden said. "I am announcing the Justice Department will name a chief prosecutor for pandemic fraud."
The nation is moving safely to a new normal, with the number of severe COVID-19 cases down to levels not seen since July of last year, Biden said. Seventy-five percent of Americans are fully vaccinated.
"For the past two years COVID has affected every decision in our lives," Biden said. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has relaxed mask guidelines for areas deemed to have low to medium COVID-19 levels.
"We'll continue vaccinating the world," Biden said.
Another round of COVID-19 tests will become available from the federal government at covidtests.gov.
Biden continued his push for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.
"That is why my top priority is getting prices under control," Biden said. "We pay more for the same drug produced by the same company than any other country in the world."
Insulin costs about $10 a vial to make. But drug-makers charge 30 times that amount, said Biden, who wants to cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month.
In other healthcare initiatives, Biden called for full parity for coverage between physical and mental healthcare; for additional efforts in opioid addiction and mental healthcare; and for Medicare to set higher standards for nursing homes.
He addressed his goal for a Cancer Moonshot, to reduce the number of cancer deaths by half over the next 25 years.
"Last month, I announced our plan to supercharge the Cancer Moonshot that President Obama asked me to lead six years ago," Biden said. "Our goal is to cut the cancer death rate by at least 50% percent over the next 25 years, and I think we can do better than that, turn more cancers from death sentences into treatable diseases.
"Let's end cancer as we know it. This is personal," Biden said.
Biden got emotional talking about veterans who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, suffering the effects of breathing smoke from burn pits that incinerated waste such as medical and hazardous material and jet fuel.
"And when they came home, many of the world's fittest and best-trained warriors in the world were never the same. Headaches, numbness, dizziness," Biden said. "A cancer that would put them in a flag-draped coffin. I know. One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden. I don't know for sure if a burn pit that he lived near in Iraq and earlier it -- earlier than that in Kosovo -- was the cause of his brain cancer, or the diseases of so many of our troops."
Biden called on Congress to fund the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to drive breakthroughs in cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and more.
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org
