If you have not been to the White House Priorities website, the major areas of focus for the Biden Administration are Climate, Immigration, Equal Rights, Economy, Global Standing and Health Care.
After having carefully read each paragraph, and ultimately reading between the lines, the only focus that does not have a real sense of urgency is Health Care. In fact, the Biden Administration seems content to keep the current health care system in place, despite calls from the progressive left to move towards a single payer system similar to Canada’s health care system in which the government determines the quantity and quality of health care for all.
Despite the talking points coming from the varied special interest groups and politicians, let’s dive into what the experts are saying is going to happen to our health care system in the next few years.
Bigger fish to fry
Given today’s heated rhetoric, both politically and socially, health care is simply not a priority for the Democrat controlled federal government.
“Given other challenges in the US that need to be dealt with first – such as the COVID-19 response, additional Medicaid funding and economy and tax reform – dramatic changes are unlikely,” said Mark Brewer, life sciences research director for finnCap
Mental health and COVID
The 2020/2021 government ordered shutdowns added additional stress on an already underfunded sector of health care, behavioral health.
Recently, the Biden administration announced $2.5 billion in funding to states and territories to address the crisis. “We know multiple stressors during the pandemic – isolation, sickness, grief, job loss, food instability and loss of routines – have devastated many Americans and presented unprecedented challenges for behavioral health providers across the nation,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use, Tom Coderre.
Recentric currently works with behavioral health tenants in our portfolio, understands the need for expanded services, and anticipates further growth in this sector for our existing tenants and future tenants.
Healthcare is only growing.
As a result of the latest stimulus plans, the Biden administration provided nearly 7 million people without insurance access to free insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
And as recently as early April, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) expanded eligibility for the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies (federal aid to help people pay for insurance plans bought on the individual marketplace). This will undoubtedly expand the size of the healthcare industry as it keeps pace with the new influx of patients newly covered by insurance.
As a private equity real estate company focused exclusively on health care, Recentric is bullish on our business model, and we believe we will see an increase in demand for medical office space due to increased patient numbers as a result of expanded government coverage.
We are also encouraged that the current quasi-free market health care system, arguably the best in the world despite its flaws, will remain intact throughout the foreseeable future which will provide stability in health care choices for many Americans.