Americans today are facing an epidemic of chronic illness, including arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease. In fact, chronic illness is now the biggest single driver of medical costs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that chronic diseases are the leading cause of death and disability in America. As of 2012, the last time the agency collected data, approximately 117 million U.S. adults had one or more chronic health conditions.

The challenge of effectively caring for the growing numbers of Americans suffering with these conditions, particularly as they age into retirement, is enormous.

That is why Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.; and Mark Warner, D-Va., have come together to address the problem.

For two years, they have closely studied the impact of the chronic illness problem, particularly as it relates to Medicare, the health program for America’s senior and disabled citizens.

Medicare is facing significant challenges from cost increases related to chronic illnesses, at a time when the program already faces many other challenges.

While a large number of factors contribute to Medicare’s rising costs—including the rapid aging of the population, the expense of newer prescription therapies, as well as the unit costs of increasingly expensive medical treatments and procedures—one cannot overlook the fact that an estimated 68 percent of Medicare recipients suffer with multiple chronic conditions.

Medicare beneficiaries who suffer from chronic illnesses, of course, disproportionately contribute to costly hospital readmissions.

Under Hatch’s leadership, the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday held a mark-up session on S. 870, the Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic (CHRONIC) Care Act of 2017. The committee approved the bill by a vote of 26-0.

With 17 bipartisan co-sponsors, the bill aims to amend Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to implement Medicare payment policies designed to improve management of chronic disease, streamline care coordination, and improve quality outcomes without adding to the deficit.

The Senate legislation would largely build upon the success of Medicare Advantage, the large and growing system of competing private health plans in the Medicare program.

Today, almost one-third of all enrollees in the Medicare program are enrolled in these private health plans, and that number is projected to grow significantly.

The bill would also extend new care delivery options for the so-called “accountable care organizations” (ACOs) that currently deliver medical care in the traditional Medicare program as well.

Thus far, the ACOs have had a mixed success in delivering cost-effective care in the Medicare program. This legislative effort, focused on chronic illness, may help to improve their performance.

Hatch and his colleagues build on the potential of Medicare Advantage plans to cope with the chronic illness problem because the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program does not respond nearly as well to the growing challenge of chronic illness.

Traditional Medicare does not provide the case management and care coordination that is increasingly routine in competing private health plans in the Medicare Advantage program.

Key Objectives

The Senate legislation has several objectives.

First, it would enhance home-based and “team-based” care, particularly for senior and disabled enrollees in the Medicare Advantage “special needs plans.” These special Medicare Advantage plans are already focused on providing care for complex and difficult patient populations.

The bill also expands opportunities for telehealth.

Second, the bill would broaden opportunities for doctors and patients in Medicare Advantage to make use of advancing medical technology and the latest innovations in benefit designs and care delivery models.

For example, the bill would enable Medicare Advantage plans to offer new benefits to chronically ill patients, not as “supplemental” benefits, but as part of their regular benefit offerings.

In short, the bill would give Medicare Advantage plans more flexibility in their benefit design and reimburse them for it.

Third, the bill would amend the law governing ACOs by enabling ACO patients to see any physician of their choice, while allowing ACOs to offer incentives to patients who take advantage of preventative care services.

An Important Step

In the short term, the Senate bill would improve care delivery for the chronically ill.

The potential for improving patient care across the board would be even greater if seniors’ health plans and providers—including traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans, and ACOs—were able to compete on a level playing field where information on medical prices and outcomes was fully available, and where patients exercised direct control over Medicare dollars in a defined contribution (“premium support”) program.

This bill is an important step forward in a process of improving Medicare, especially for those beneficiaries that experience chronic illness. (For more from the author of “Chronic Illness Is an Epidemic in America. This Senate Bill Will Help Address It.” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Former FBI Director James Comey may have been building a legal case against President Donald Trump well before the president fired him on May 9, according to a former Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesperson.

Matthew Miller, who served as the DOJ’s Director of the Office of Public Affairs under former Attorney General Eric Holder, suggested that Comey may have been building an obstruction of justice case against the president, in an interview with the Washington Post.

Miller’s suggestion carries weight not just because of his extensive background at DOJ and in government, but also because he predicted that Comey left a paper trail of his interactions with Trump. Miller sent the following tweet five days before the New York Times reported that Comey wrote a memo indicating the president had asked him to end an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

One thing I learned at DOJ about Comey: he leaves a protective paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate happened. Stay tuned. https://t.co/sENlYyhL5B

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) May 12, 2017

While Miller said it is standard practice for an FBI director to record potentially inappropriate conversations and behavior, Comey could have taken a different approach when speaking with the president.

“I keep wondering, something in the back of my head keeps saying to me, maybe Comey was actually trying to build an obstruction-of-justice case against the president here,” Miller told WaPo. (Read more from “Former DOJ Spox: Comey Is Trying to Take Down Trump” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Someday, future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could have instead so aggressively promoted death to children by abortion—both here and overseas.

They will note that we prided ourselves on our commitment to human rights, while precluding virtually all protection to the most persecuted minority in the world today—unborn children.

And they will demand to know why dismembering a child with sharp knives, pulverizing an infant with powerful suction devices, or chemically poisoning a baby with any number of toxic chemicals failed to elicit in so many so much as a scintilla of empathy, mercy, or compassion for the victims.

Abortion is violence against children, and hurts women.

This week, the Trump administration announced the implementation of the new Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy—a significant reiteration and expansion of President Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City policy.

Announced by Reagan at the United Nations Conference on Population Control in Mexico City in 1984—hence its name—the policy was and is designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is not funneled to foreign nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush embraced the policy, while Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama nullified it.

Thirty-two years ago—in July of 1985—I authored the first of several successful annual amendments on the floor of the House of Representatives to preserve the Mexico City policy.

Significantly, the old Mexico City policy only applied to family planning funds—over half a billion dollars.

The new policy establishes pro-child safeguards—benign, humane conditions—on about $8.8 billion in annual global health assistance funding appropriated to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of State and Defense.

This funding includes not only family planning, but other global health assistance such as maternal and child health, malaria, and HIV/AIDs.

Also of significance, the new pro-child, pro-woman safeguards do not reduce funding for global health assistance by so much as a dollar.

According to State Department guidance, the policy only applies to foreign NGOs as grantees or subgrantees. Other potential recipients of global health assistance grant money—including national and subnational governments—are exempt, as are refugee and migration assistance programs.

President Donald Trump’s Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy includes three abortion exceptions—for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. Nothing in the policy prevents foreign NGOs from treating injuries or illnesses that were caused by any abortion.

For years, pro-abortion organizations have used U.S. taxpayer funds to weaken, undermine, or reverse pro-life laws in other nations and systematically destroy the precious lives of unborn children.

Scores of countries throughout the world have been besieged by aggressive and well-funded campaigns to overturn their pro-life laws and policies.

The Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy will significantly mitigate U.S. taxpayer complicity in global abortion.

U.S. foreign policy—and the foreign entities we fund with billions of dollars in grant money—should consistently affirm, care for, and tangibly assist women and children.

We must increase access to maternal and prenatal care, and ensure access to safe blood and better nutrition.

We must also expand essential obstetrical services, including skilled birth attendants, while improving transportation to emergency care facilities to significantly reduce maternal mortality and morbidity—including from obstetric fistula.

Prioritizing programs that ensure adequate nutrition and supplementation for moms and children during the all-important first 1,000 days of life—from conception to the second birthday—are among the most transformative, life-enhancing commitments that can be made.

Expanding these measures make women and children healthier, stronger, and more resilient to disease and disability while reducing death and injury.

No one is expendable or a throwaway. Every human life has infinite value. Birth is merely an event, not the beginning of the life of a child.

The new Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy is inclusive of all people, regardless of their age, race, sex, disability, or condition of dependency—especially the weakest and most vulnerable. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Expansion of Mexico City Policy Is a Major Victory in Protecting Life” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

It’s that time of year again. Financial reserves from our December fundraiser have been slowly depleted and VDARE.com is staring down a funding shortage as we creep into summer. In order for us to survive until the fall, we have to bring a total of $80,000 right now. We all need to pull together to make it happen.

Earlier this week, our intrepid editor, Peter Brimelow, noted that “This is the spring of our discontent” – in other words, although we’re all discontented with Trump’s lack of progress so far, the fact is, there are tremendous opportunities right now because the Trump administration exists at all. We must build the wall. We must restrict legal immigration. We must deport illegals, for the sake of America. These things will only happen if organizations like VDARE.com have your support.

Of course, no matter how generous the funding, if we didn’t have concrete plans for changing the tide, nothing would happen.

So what are our plans?

Here’s a sample of what we can do immediately with the right funding:

VDARE Book Club: The discussion over Steve Bannon’s edgy reading list has created a major stir in the Main Stream Media and opened the opportunity for a VDARE Book Club. We have an incredible lineup of books that examine the roots of our movement and look ahead to where we go from here. We just need an initial capital investment to roll it out.

VDARE Campus Speaking Tour: Peter Brimelow and John Derbyshire were doing campus talks before they were cool. For that matter, they were protested against and blacklisted before it was cool. Now, with anti-Free Speech activism taking over college campuses, we cannot back down. We have several invitations that we’re eager to accept and we’d like to add as many more as possible.

VDARE Conferences: It’s no secret that public meetings of American patriots can be tricky to pull off. We will not be cowed by the strong-arm tactics of Cultural Marxist enforcers. Conferences provide a space for the most significant thinkers in America today to come together and work out solutions to keep America American, plus our attendees have the opportunity to get to know fellow patriots. The show must—and will—go on!

VDARE Merchandise: A strong defense of culture cannot overlook the importance of social signaling, and the most effective way for us to harness that power is by getting VDARE.com’s brand and ideas in people’s daily lives. Clothing, bags, lapel pins, bumper stickers, Christmas ornaments—it’s time to develop witty, beautiful, powerful merchandise for our audience.

All of these projects will chip away at the Mainstream Media blackout on our issues (patriotic immigration reform and questions of American national identity). Together, they will strengthen the VDARE.com brand, reach new audiences and open possibilities for ever more effective execution of our mission.

The mission of the VDARE Foundation is education on two main issues: first, the unsustainability of current US immigration policy and second, the “National Question,” which is the viability of the US as a nation-state. We do this through the VDARE.com webzine and VDARE Books, public speaking, conferences, debates and Mainstream Media appearances.

In this capacity, VDARE.com has accomplished a great deal. Already, we have taken our place as the voice of patriotic immigration in America. Our country need that voice – now more than ever – to get louder and louder until it is impossible to ignore.

Our ultimate goal is to become a far-reaching patriotic media conglomeration. VDARE.com will always be our flagship operation and we want to expand into hard-hitting podcasts, professional videos and books that can reflect the paradigm shift America so desperately needs. VDARE.com can amplify the most interesting and disciplined voices of this movement we have created, and unite the community under the shared interest in keeping America American. But none of this is possible without your help. What do you have to give? (For more from the author of “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Build the Wall” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.