(Al Drago/Getty Images)
Former Vice President Joe Biden attended the StartUp Health Festival during J.P. Morgan Week in San Francisco and delivered an impassioned, hopeful, and uplifting message of unity: minorites suffer discrimination in society – especially with regards to our healthcare system.
Biden – a likely 2020 candidate for President – delivered comments for 90 minutes on Tuesday, listing off a litany of things he “wished” he could say about healthcare in America – you know, that system he helped “fix” during the Obama administration?
Here’s what Biden wishes he could say, according to our friends at MedCity News:
- I’d like to be able to say that the affordability of cancer treatment is getting better and not worse, but I can’t. It’s getting worse.
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I’d like to say that there are widely distributed applied techniques and mechanisms to share data among researchers, clinicians, and patients, but I can’t.
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I’d like to be able to say that a cancer diagnosis in St. Louis is seconded by another doctor in Memphis in the case of a patient who moved or seeks for a second opinion, but I can’t say that.
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I’d like to say that your doctor in Bemidji, Minnesota has all the tools needed to take care of a cancer he may have just diagnosed … just as a doctor from Dana Farber, Sloan Kettering or MD Anderson, but I can’t say that.
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I’d like to say that people in every zip code are getting tested for detectable cancers before they progress to the fatal degree, but I can’t.
*Editor’s note: It sounds like the ACA really screwed the pooch, but by all means, let’s get one of the guys who couldn’t ‘fix’ it before into the White House to take another swing at it.
Here’s what Joe envisions for healthcare if ‘true’ collaboration is achieved (If we elect him President, that is):
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I see the day when medicine is more effective when each and every community has access to it so that no one dies from treatable cancers that were discovered much too late. It’s within our grasp, it’s real.
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I see the day when those of you in the room take your children or grandchildren to their pre-school physical where they will be vaccinated against certain cancers, just the way they are vaccinated against the HPV now. [Human Papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer, penile cancers among other cancers] now. That’s on the horizon.
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I see the day when care is personalized and more effective with less harmful side effects.
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I see the day when cancer survivors have few long-term side effects.
Cool! It’s just like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but instead of championing the strength of the individual, Biden’s advocating for the government to fix everything up.
WIBC host Tony Katz takes on the former VP’s comments in today’s Popcorn Moment:
