FROM COVID-19 TO 2024 — President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night made one thing clear as we inch closer to election season: The time for lingering on the messy details of the pandemic is over, and the time for talking about the health care problems that occupy voters’ minds — like reducing health care costs — has arrived. In the first moments of his speech, Biden noted that “Covid no longer controls our lives," a line that served to both underscore his administration’s getting the country to this point and pave the way for the long list of other health care priorities he went on to talk about. Here are the other health care issues he lingered on — and left out — in the State of the Union. Drug pricing: As expected, Biden called for a universal $35 insulin price cap for all Americans. He highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act provision that caps out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 a year, which he said will take effect in 2025, and said drug price negotiations will cut the federal deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. Medicaid expansion: Biden reiterated calls to fill the Medicaid coverage gap for the roughly 2 million people living in the 11 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. Filling in the coverage gap would allow about 2 million uninsured people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to receive subsidies through their state’s health insurance exchange to get health insurance. Medicare: The president pledged that neither Medicare nor Social Security would be cut and he would veto attempts to slash them. He also said he planned to extend the Medicare Trust Fund by at least two decades. Abortion: Biden didn’t linger long on the issue of abortion, considering this was the first SOTU since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer. He called on Congress to restore the right taken away in the Roe v. Wade decision and said he would veto a national abortion ban if Congress passed one. Crackdown on fentanyl: It wasn’t a surprise to see fentanyl come up a few times in Biden’s speech: Ramping up law enforcement on fentanyl trafficking was a major plank of his National Drug Control Strategy released last spring, and Republican lawmakers have been vocal in the new Congress about the Biden administration’s failure to stop the deadly synthetic opioid from entering the U.S. drug supply. Biden said he wanted to “launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale and trafficking with more drug-detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border” and introduce stronger penalties for fentanyl trafficking. Rahul Gupta, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, offered more details on that plan earlier Tuesday. Mental health: There was surprisingly little mention of mental health given the administration’s heavy investment last year in expanding access. The president broadly called for “more” mental health professionals and first responders to address growing addiction rates and other mental health issues, but the only specific request he made was for bipartisan legislation to stop big tech companies from collecting online data about kids and using it to target them with ads — a practice some say is having deleterious effects on their mental health. In a call with reporters earlier Tuesday, the White House offered additional details on the administration’s plans to tackle the crisis. Cancer moonshot: Biden highlighted his cancer moonshot program, which aims to cut the cancer death rate by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years. He called for bipartisan support for the effort to repeat the success of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which changed the trajectory of the global fight against HIV/Aids. Veterans’ health: Biden noted that the country loses 17 veterans a day to suicide and said the VA “is doing everything it can, including expanding mental health screenings and a proven program that recruits veterans to help other veterans understand what they're going through and get them the help they need.” BONUS FACT CHECK — Biden said the Inflation Reduction Act, which caps what most Medicare recipients pay for insulin at $35 a month, would go after pharma’s record profits. It won’t. The law caps what people pay and forces insurers to pick up the difference. Biden also said Covid deaths are down 90 percent. Covid deaths peaked at about 3,300 a day just before his inauguration. They now stand around 500 a day. That’s roughly 85 percent, but it’s worth noting that, according to the CDC, more than 15,000 people have died from Covid in the last month, the highest four-week total in 10 months. WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE — A chiropractor known as “Dr. Pat” has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for defrauding the NBA’s health care plan by generating dozens of fake invoices. Send your news and tips to kmahr@politico.com and dpayne@politico.com. TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, Ben Leonard talks with Blake Jones about California lawmakers’ push to require schools to keep Narcan on hand amid the influx of fentanyl into their state and a rise in teen overdose deaths.
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