HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Urges Nation to Shift from an “Illness-Care System” to a “Wellness-Care System” at National Press Club Luncheon

Highlights HHS’s Work to Increase Access to Quality, Affordable Health Care, Lower Health Care Costs, and Protect Access to Reproductive Care

On Thursday, February 8, 2024, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra addressed the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. for its historic Headliners Luncheon.

Secretary Becerra addresses the National Press Club.

During his address, he urged the nation to shift from an “illness-care system” to a “wellness-care system.” He also highlighted the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to increase access to quality, affordable health care, lower health care costs, including the cost of prescription drugs, and protect access to reproductive health care.

“We have this opportunity to make some real changes…. This president, Joe Biden, … sees the opportunity… to make a big change in our healthcare system,” said Secretary Becerra. “So, I want to talk about what, at HHS, we do. Because the mandate we got from the president of the United States was to go big in so many things. Nearly 700 million shots in the arms of Americans of the COVID vaccine;… national healthcare data shared among all states and the federal government;… Marshall plan-type response to save our jobs, to save our businesses, to save our economy;… using our authority as well to secure reproductive health care access for every American who needs it;… genuine negotiations globally to work together to tackle future pandemics and global health care crises; undeniable exposure of the weaknesses of our expensive, top heavy health care system;… unprecedented measures to take on a broken public health care system…. It's those measures that I want to talk a bit about, because they fall on HHS to enact affordable health care coverage.”

In his opening remarks, Secretary Becerra thanked the press for their work and noted the importance of newsrooms telling critical stories:

“As an avid consumer of what you put out in your news and sometimes the target of your work, I admire and appreciate what you do and how critical it is that you do it right. And so, thank you very much,” said Secretary Becerra. “We'll continue to hear about the big stories, but it's the little things that go on in life that really do count. So, I want to say to each and every one of you, thank you for what you do.”

Mark Schoeff Jr. Asks Secretary Becerra Questions from Journalists in a Q&A Session.

Increasing Access to Health Care

During his remarks, Secretary Becerra highlighted the Biden-Harris Administration’s record-breaking increase in enrollment through the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace.

“In just these three years, President Biden has made it possible for an additional nine million people to have that peace of mind through the Marketplace,” said Secretary Becerra. “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and now you have to include Marketplace as the cleanup hitter for all those great social insurance programs.”

HHS recently announced that a record-breaking 21.3 million people selected an Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace plan during the 2024 Open Enrollment Period. Total plan selections include more than five million people — about a fourth — who are new to the Marketplaces and 16 million people who renewed their coverage.

Lowering Health Care Costs

Secretary Becerra also discussed how Americans are struggling to pay for prescription drugs. He shared the story he had heard from a couple in New Mexico.

“[They] had to make a decision after the husband who had suffered a stroke began to recover and had regained most of his movement and his faculties, but still was having problem with his sight on one side. And when the physicians told him, ‘We actually have some medication that will help accelerate your recovery,’ as they were approaching the time of getting the medication, they found out that their roof was too holey and would not survive the winter. So they had to make a decision—buy the medicine or fix the roof? And you know, the moral of the story, they fixed the roof.”

Secretary Becerra then shared how the Biden-Harris Administration is working to lower drug prices for everyday Americans. Through President Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, Medicare now has the power to negotiate prescription drug prices directly with drug companies. Most recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent initial price offers for the first 10 prescription drugs being negotiated, which treat serious health issues including diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and cancer.

Reproductive Rights

During his remarks, Secretary Becerra also highlighted HHS’s work to protect reproductive care in the wake of the Dobbs decision.

“We’re using our authority as well to secure reproductive health care access for every American who needs it—wherever they are, whenever they need it,” said Secretary Becerra. “We're protecting privacy for patients and for providers and doctors.”

HHS is taking action to keep reproductive health available to all who need it – at a time when women and doctors are facing risks and threats to their life and well-being. Last month, HHS announced a series of actions to educate the public about their rights to emergency medical care if you are pregnant and need an abortion under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). HHS has also worked to clarify protections for birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act, including contraception care with no out-of-pocket costs, and protecting medical privacy.

“We’re supporting maternal health not just at birth, not just for the first 60 days after birth under Medicaid, but for 365 days after birth through the Medicaid program,” said Secretary Becerra referring to the Biden-Harris Administration urging all states and territories to provide a full year of continuous postpartum coverage through Medicaid and CHIP under the American Rescue Plan Act. To date, CMS has approved these postpartum coverage extensions in 40 states, plus Washington, D.C. and the Virgin Islands.

“And we know that for Black and indigenous communities, the rates of death and morbidity, when it comes to maternal health, are three times that than what they are in the white community,” he added.

At the end of his remarks, Secretary Becerra spoke about the need to shift the nation from a health system that focuses on treating illness and injury, to a system that focuses on preventing illness and injury.

Last week, HHS hosted its first-ever ‘Food is Medicine’ Summit, an all-day summit for stakeholders at the intersection between food and health. The event reflected Secretary Becerra’s vision of moving our country from an illness-care system to a wellness-care system through HHS’s broader Food is Medicine initiative and other related government initiatives.

“We treat illness. We don’t sustain wellness. We wait, and wait, and then when it’s an illness, then we spend major dollars to treat it,” said Secretary Becerra. “We could save so much money, and we could do so much more, and get to so many more people, if we turned our system away from turning away to treating illness to promoting wellness.”