Good morning ☀️ It’s our last edition of the year, and we have a big ask. We want you to pick the Quote of the Year. Scroll down for instructions on how to cast your vote, and we’ll let you know the results when we’re back in your inboxes on Jan. 3. Until then, happy voting and happy holidays!
Today’s edition: The House is slated to pass the sweeping government funding bill with an array of health provisions today. Emergency room doctors seek to prohibit private equity ownership of medical practices. But first …
Take our annual health-care quote poll
© Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden light the 100th National Christmas Tree on November 30. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
For the past year, your Health 202 team has picked a quote of the week. It’s represented our own little time capsule of 2022 — a way to remember the year’s biggest feuds, emotional moments, and let’s be real, determine whose predictions were (and were not) prescient.
🗳️ Now, we need your help. We’ve picked out a quote from each month, and we want your vote for the Quote of the Year. Scroll down, click the “Vote” link for your favorite quote and voilà, your pick will be counted. We’ll let you know the winner when we’re back. (Please vote for just one quote.)
January
“Most people are going to get covid.” — Janet Woodcock, a top Food and Drug Administration official who was serving as the agency’s acting head.
Flashback: This quote was truly prescient. But at the time, it was viewed as a stark admission by a federal health official — and was delivered in the middle of a Senate hearing where lawmakers from both parties delivered withering criticism of the Biden administration’s pandemic response.
February
“Public health is sort of the bearer of bad news. This is basically a kill-the-messenger phenomenon.” — Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University epidemiologist who has been a vocal proponent of continuing measures to protect the most vulnerable communities.
Flashback: A slew of Democratic governors began lifting their mask mandates, leading to a push-and-pull between politicians who had embraced mitigation measures and some public health experts who continued to advise such precautions.
March
“I was pretty surprised we had the power to change time itself.” — Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who led a House subcommittee hearing on whether to change the nation’s daylight saving policy.
Flashback: Lawmakers may agree on the need to stop shifting the clock twice per year, citing the health effects of doing so. But this year, they’ve run out of time to fix it.
April
“It’s kind of crazy to think how long it felt like we were bouncers, like the policemen of masks.” — Heather Holding, a flight attendant based in Chicago.
Flashback: A federal judge upended the administration’s plans to extend a mask mandate for air travel and public transportation — and within hours, face coverings across the country came off.
May
The leaked document “may activate the base in a way that they haven’t been activated before because I think it was very hard for people to imagine overturning Roe v. Wade.” — Alina Salganicoff, a senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Flashback: This was Salganicoff’s take just a few hours after Politico published a leaked draft opinion showing the majority of the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe. With abortion rights winning at the ballot box in November, this quote holds up.
June
“We tell her, you know, ‘You have a couple of friends that are still alive. And she tells us, ‘I don’t have friends anymore. All my friends are dead.’” — Miguel Cerrillo, whose daughter Miah saw her friends killed during the school shooting in Uvalde, Tex.
Flashback: This is a gut-punch of a quote. The summer’s string of massacres, and the Uvalde shooting in particular, spurred lawmakers to act in a way they hadn’t in nearly three decades: Passing bipartisan legislation to address gun violence. But the legislation didn’t contain everything advocates wanted, and the outlook for more action in a divided Congress is dim.
July
“I think this issue has the potential to divide the right,” referring to abortion restrictions, “because of the issue of where you put the line. It’s not clean, neat and easy.” — Louisiana state Rep. Alan Seabaugh, a Republican.
Flashback: This quote wound up being spot on. Since Roe was overturned, some Republicans have backed off some hard-line abortion measures they once championed, as fights broke out in state legislatures over what exceptions to include and criminal penalties for doctors. In Congress, there isn’t consensus over a federal proposal to ban abortions after 15 weeks.
August
The Health 202 was taking advantage of summer Fridays this month. No Friday editions = no quotes of the week.
September
“I really believe this is why God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the covid shot.” — Ashish Jha, the White House coronavirus coordinator.
Flashback: Jha was announcing a strategy shift, believing that the country had moved to the point where a single annual coronavirus shot would provide a high degree of protection against serious illness all year. And that shot can be given at the same time as the flu vaccine.
October
“As the saying goes, when you mix science and politics, you get politics.” — Michael Worobey, a professor at the University of Arizona who co-authored two peer-reviewed studies published in the journal Science that presented the case for the Huanan Seafood Market as the epicenter of the covid-19 outbreak.
Flashback: Senate Republican staffers had just released a report laying out their argument that the lab-leak theory is the most likely origin of the coronavirus. There are deep divisions over this question — and the issue will again be thrust into the political spotlight next year amid promised House GOP probes.
November
“This victory shows us that we can win everywhere on this issue.” — Rachel Sweet, the campaign manager for the abortion rights side in Kentucky and Kansas.
Flashback: Abortion rights advocates scored major victories in the midterm elections. And they’re already eyeing potential ballot measures to protect abortion rights in 2024.
December
“If you are unlucky to be exposed to three different viruses simultaneously, there’s no law that says you can’t get all three.” — John P. Moore, Weill Cornell Medicine professor and immunologist.
Flashback: We guess there’s nothing to flashback to just yet. The country is still in the midst of a triple threat of viruses as the holidays near.
Daybook
On tap today: President Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., to meet with pediatric patients and their families. The trip continues the annual tradition of first ladies visiting the hospital during the holiday season to thank doctors, nurses and staff for their work.
On the Hill
Omni-update: The Senate yesterday cleared the sprawling roughly $1.7 trillion package to fund the government through September, a critical step toward passing the legislation encompassing an array of new health policies.
The bipartisan 68-29 vote teed up the measure for debate in the House, which plans to vote on the legislation today. Both Democrats and Republicans scored major health policy wins in the package, such as big-ticket Medicaid and pandemic-related measures.
For instance: The legislation provides more funding certainty to the territories’ Medicaid programs, contains the bulk of a sweeping bipartisan plan to prepare for future pandemics, partially staves off Medicare cuts to providers’ pay and lets states permanently extend Medicaid to new moms for 12 months. The bill also includes a slew of under-the-radar measures, like more stable funding for the Indian Health Service and a boost in cash for the new 988 mental health crisis hotline.
Want a breakdown of what’s in the bill? Click here.
The Post’s Tony Romm:
Industry Rx
ER doctors are pushing for a crackdown on private equity staffing practices
© Michael S. Williamson/Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post Physicians and patient advocacy groups are hoping that a victory in the case will spur tighter regulations across the country. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Some emergency physicians and consumer advocacy groups are calling for stricter enforcement of laws that prevent nonlicensed physicians from owning medical practices amid a rise in private equity-backed companies, Kaiser Health News reports.
Opponents of the so-called corporate practice of medicine allege that companies successfully sidestep bans held by 33 states and the District of Columbia by buying or establishing local staffing groups that are nominally owned by doctors but controlled by private equity investors.
What we’re watching: The American Academy of Emergency Medicine Physician Group is suing Tennessee-based Envision Healthcare, owned by investment giant KKR & Co., alleging Envision uses shell business structures to retain de facto ownership of emergency room staffing groups in California. Plaintiffs in the case, which is scheduled to kick off in federal court in January 2024, are asking the court to declare them illegal.
The other side: Envision contends it complies with state laws and that its operating structure is common within the nation’s health-care system — and challenges to that structure “have proved meritless.”
The bigger picture: Physician and consumer advocates hope a victory would lead to prohibition of the practice in California and spur regulators and prosecutors in other states to take bans on the practice more seriously. But the push to reinvigorate the laws have plenty of skeptics, who note that the profit motive has penetrated every corner of health care, KHN’s Bernard J. Wolfson writes.
In other health news
- The Florida Supreme Court approved Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) request to convene a grand jury to investigate any alleged wrongdoing connected to coronavirus vaccines, the Associated Press reports.
- The FDA approved Gilead Sciences’s Sunlenca therapy for HIV patients whose disease has become resistant to other medications. It’s the first of a new class of drugs, called capsid inhibitors, to receive a greenlight from federal regulators for treating HIV, the agency announced.
- A pair of bills ensuring workplace protections for pregnant and nursing women was added to the government funding package yesterday after receiving bipartisan support, our colleague Tony Romm reports.
Health reads
Sugar rush
Thanks for reading! See y’all tomorrow.
