Category: Health

President Joe Biden’s Healthcare Record

President Joe Biden has announced his decision not to seek reelection, choosing to focus on fulfilling his duties as President. During his term, he achieved record-high enrollment in ACA Marketplace plans and proposed expanding subsidies. His administration also focused on public health and mental health initiatives, as well as addressing healthcare costs and prescription drug pricing.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.

President Joe Biden

President Biden during a visit to the National Institutes of Health
  • President Biden Visits NIH Vaccine Research Center
First Lady Dr. Jill Biden visiting a school.

With that surprising announcement, we all learned that Joe Biden will not be the next President of the United States. Please join me in thanking President and Mrs. Biden for their service and wish them well in their future endeavors.

I had planned to share this post after the Democratic Convention when Biden was expected to be officially nominated for President. Instead, I am sharing it as a reminder of what he accomplished in healthcare as President.

Two years ago I had to leave a job I loved without warning and at my stage of life it wasn’t wise or practical to start over somewhere else. Initially, I felt sad and disappointed, but I have found other ways to use my time and experience.

I suspect we will continue to see the Bidens stay as active and involved as possible, although they deserve a well-earned rest.

The Biden Healthcare Record

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, referred to as the Affordable Care Act or “ACA” for short, is the comprehensive health care reform law enacted in March 2010. This was during President Barack Obama’s administration, thus the frequently used nickname “ObamaCare.” Joe Biden was serving as Vice President.

The following unedited data from the KFF website includes Biden’s policies on the Affordable Care Act, cost of medical care, prescription drug pricing, public health, and mental health.

KFF is a nonprofit health policy research, polling, and news organization. 

There is more data about reproductive and sexual health issues, long-term care, global health, and gun violence which you can read at the highlighted link.

Affordable Care Act

  • Signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which temporarily expanded eligibility for and increased ACA Marketplace subsidies. These were extended by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) through 2025. 
  • Fixed the “family glitch,” allowing dependents of people with unaffordable employer-based family coverage to receive ACA subsidies. 
  • Reversed Trump administration expansion of short-term plans and restored outreach and enrollment assistance and funding. 
  • Achieved record-high enrollment in ACA Marketplace plans. 
  • Biden proposes to build on legislation passed during his term and make expanded subsidies offered under the IRA permanent.  
  • Proposed a public option health plan during the 2020 campaign but did not issue a formal plan once in office. 

Health Care Costs

  • Under his administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule that would remove medical debt from consumer credit reports. Biden also proposes that in the first 100 days of his next term, he would “wipe out” medical debt for “pennies on the dollar.”
  • In 2021, began implementing the No Surprises Act, establishing processes to determine payments for out-of-network bills and resolving payment disputes. 
  • Proposed expanding surprise billing protections to ground ambulance providers. 
  • Expanded the Trump-era rules on price transparency to address implementation challenges and enforce the legislation. 
  • Signed the Inflation Reduction Act, empowering Medicare to negotiate prices for certain drugs with pharmaceutical companies and increase subsidies for ACA marketplace plans (more details in Prescription Drug Prices section). 
  • Proposed a public option health plan during the 2020 campaign but did not issue a formal plan once in office. 

Prescription Drug Prices

  • Signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which requires the government to negotiate prices for some Medicare-covered drugs (with the number growing over time), requires drug companies to pay rebates if prices rise faster than inflation, caps out-of-pocket drug spending, and limits monthly insulin costs to $35 for Medicare beneficiaries in Part B and all Part D plans, improves financial assistance for low-income beneficiaries, and other changes. 
  • Proposes to expand the number of drugs selected for government price negotiation and extend $35 insulin copay cap and drug out-of-pocket cap to people with commercial insurance.
  • Approved Florida’s plan to import some prescription drugs from Canada; implementation contingent on further action by Florida. 
  • Delayed implementation of the Trump Administration’s drug rebate rule until 2032, which will delay projected increases in Medicare spending. 
  • Established a voluntary model to increase access to cell and gene therapies for people with Medicaid. 

Public Health

Mental Health

Source-KFF

“Compare the Candidates on Health Care Policy”, KFF, July 15, 2024, https://www.kff.org/compare-2024-candidates-health-care-policy/(accessed July 23, 2024)

KFF’s website content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license that allows for the sharing of information with proper attribution and without alteration.

Exploring the HEART of Health

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Featured Image

NIH Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli joins President Joe Biden at the signing of the Presidential Memorandum on Women’s Health Research

President Joe Biden, joined by First Lady Jill Biden, signs the Presidential Memorandum on Women’s Health Research. NIH Director Dr. Monica Bertagnolli and Office of Research on Women’s Health Director Dr. Janine Clayton (on right) attended this historic event. Credit: Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz; Public Domain

Unsung Heroes-honoring mothers past and present

Mother’s Day is a widely celebrated occasion, with significant spending on gifts, meals, and travel. Notable mothers in leadership roles are changing the landscape. The movie “Unsung Hero” tells an inspiring story about a mother of seven who rebuilt her life in the face of adversity. Genealogical research and DNA testing offer valuable insights into family history and health.

Updated May 5, 2025

Many countries around the world have a day dedicated to honoring mothers. In the United States, that day occurs annually on the second Sunday in May. The day is so widely observed that May is almost synonymous with Mother’s Day.

“Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate the women who play a meaningful role in our lives,…”

NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay

Considering spending on gifts, meals, and travel, Mother’s Day is big business. “Mother’s Day spending is expected to reach $33.5 billion this year, (2024) according to the annual consumer survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. The figure is the second highest recorded, following the 2023 record $35.7 billion. ” 

Mothers Who Lead

Melania Trump became First Lady in 2017 and in 2025. She is the mother of a son, Barron Trump, and stepmother to President Donald Trump’s other adult children.

First Lady Melania Trump visits The Children’s Inn at NIH-public domain

In 2024, the Vice President was a mother, a first in United States history. Former Vice President Kamala Harris is the first woman to hold that office. She is stepmother to the two children of her husband, former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff (also a first).

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris signing holiday cards for servicemembers, November 2018. Photo credit: U.S. Congress

Former First Lady Jill Biden is both a stepmother and a mother. When she married President Joe Biden (then a Senator), he was a widower whose wife and daughter had died in a tragic automobile accident. She helped him raise his two sons and they have a daughter together.

First Lady of the United States Dr. Jill Biden and Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen Hicks visit Fort Drum, NY, January 30, 2023. (U.S. Army photos by Spc. Kasimir Jackson)

There are mothers on the Supreme Court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has seven children, two of whom she and her husband adopted. The newest on the Court, Justice Ketanji Jackson has two daughters with her surgeon husband.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett . (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Official U.S. Senate photo by Rebecca Hammel)

Unsung Hero-the movie

I recently saw a new movie about a true story. Helen, a mother of six, lived in Australia with her concert promoter husband David.

She was pregnant with their seventh child when David’s business went bankrupt and they lost their large luxurious home. After several business leads fell through, they immigrated to the United States to start over, literally with nothing.

The movie convincingly portrays David’s anger, despair, and embarrassment that his business failure made his family destitute, for which he blamed himself. Meanwhile, Helen remained optimistic, clinging to her strong Christian faith, creating a warm loving home, and nurturing her children despite their lack of material possessions.

With sacrifice, hard work, prayer, and support from friends and their church, David slowly rebuilt a successful business, and all the children have built thriving, creative careers. Three of them are now well-known recording artists, which is how I learned about this movie.

Two of their sons, Joel and Luke, sing together as a “Christian pop” duo they call For King and Country.  My husband and I attended their concert which was quite a production of sound, lights, and energy, as you can see from the photos I’m sharing.

photos by Dr Aletha at the BOK Center in Tulsa, OK

During the show, they introduced the movie, Unsung Hero, about their parents, Helen and David Smallbone.  Joel and Luke produced the film which Joel directed and played the part of his own father! (Spoiler alert, their sister, singer Rebecca St. James, has a cameo role in the film.)

We were intrigued and decided to see the film when it was released. We did and were not disappointed. It would make a remarkable story even if it weren’t true. You can find it on a streaming platform.

The Extraordinary Adventure of a Mum and Her Family 

After seeing the movie, I had to read the story behind it. In the book Behind the Lights: The Extraordinary Adventure of a Mum and Her Family, Helen Smallbone relates the struggles, setbacks, and eventual success her family went through to where they are today.

In this candid and revealing memoir, she describes how she trusted God no matter how dire the circumstances looked so that even in the darkest times their faith grew and as a family, they learned to depend on God and each other.

“Helen Smallbone’s heartfelt story illustrates what it means to really let God lead, which almost always means living outside the box of how the world says to live.

How did an ordinary Australian family produce two Grammy Award-winning artists—Rebecca St. James and FOR KING & COUNTRY? What happened to bring the Smallbones through closed doors and to new beginnings in the United States?

In Behind the Lights, Helen shares not only these stories of her family but of the life lessons they all learned along the way.” (Amazon affiliate link)

Listen to a sample from the audiobook here.

Unknown Mothers-Genealogy

I read an interesting statistic the other day. I don’t remember the source, but it claims that many people do not know the names of their four grandparents and even fewer know their eight great-grandparents.

That surprised me because even though I never met any of my grandparents, I at least knew their names. And thanks to genealogy research, now I know the names of my great-grandparents. I am a novice at genealogical research, but the more I do, the more fascinating it is.

If you want to know more about your ancestors, start now with your oldest living relatives; you don’t know how much longer they will be around and once they die their information is lost. Also, talk to younger relatives who may know more than you think.

Record and store everything you learn in a safe place.

pedigree-chart-modern-treeDownload

Genealogical information is easier to find now with the help of the internet, but not all information is reliable so you need to cross-check names and dates carefully. You can always use an all-purpose search engine like Google or Bing but sites specific for genealogy are more useful. Some of these are

Some genealogy sites are free, some offer a free trial, and some are free with optional upgrades.

DNA testing

Genetic genealogy creates family history profiles (biological relationships between or among individuals) using DNA test results combined with traditional genealogical methods. With DNA testing, genetic genealogy can determine the levels and types of biological relationships between or among individuals.

ILLUSTRATION OF DNA, Credit: Darryl Leja, NHGRI

This branch of genetics has become popular, as costs are drastically reduced making genealogical studies using molecular techniques accessible to the general public. The advantages of including DNA, instead of only using traditional genealogical research, include

  • the ability for researchers to extend their ancestry beyond the paperwork of recent centuries, and
  • to construct ancient pedigrees through molecular evolutionary studies.

Genealogists also use DNA to solve mysteries in their immediate families, such as to discover the biological parents of adoptees or to determine the accurate male ancestor in a non-paternity event (NPE).

Before taking a DNA test, consider the research question that you want to answer and learn about the different tests and companies that are available to choose from.

Mother’s Day

Whether you are reading this post on Mother’s Day or not, I hope you appreciate the mothers who impact your life, including those who are not biological relatives.

If you are a mother, consider leaving your descendants information about your ancestors to make their future genealogical searches easier, especially about family medical history that might impact their health.

A family health history can identify people with a higher-than-usual chance of having common disorders, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, certain cancers, and type 2 diabetes. These complex disorders are influenced by a combination of genetic factors, environmental conditions, and lifestyle choices. A family history also can provide information about the risk of rarer conditions caused by variants (mutations) in a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease.

We can thank science for these tools, which help us anticipate and prevent disease and premature death and identify the “unsung heroes” from our genetic past.

Exploring the HEART of Health

I’d love for you to follow this blog. I share information and inspiration to help you transform challenges into opportunities for learning and growth.

Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.

I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.

Dr. Aletha

Raymond and I at the For King and Country concert

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Dwell Bible app

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With Dwell you can listen to and read the Bible and special devotional offerings for Advent, Lent, and throughout the year.