Rep. Jake Auchincloss

Health premium inflation was my focus in a conversation with the Cranberry Country Chamber of Commerce in Lakeville. I spoke to the issue that I know is stressing both the public & private sectors as much as any other: perennial double-digit hikes in health insurance costs.

Health care is 20% of the U.S. economy: there's no silver bullet for a sector so big & complex. Every industry within the sector needs to be part of the solution. As a member of the Health subcommittee, I walked through some ways that I'm trying to reduce costs across the board:

- pharma: legislation to speed biosimilars to market so that expensive brand-biologics get more competition, faster.
- hospitals: reform to the 340B hospital pharmacy program that raises premiums for employees & measured adoption of site neutral reimbursement policies.
- insurance companies: ending noxious prior authorization & co-pay policies, as well as rejecting the over-billing of Medicare Advantage
- state & federal gov'ts: establishing terms & conditions for thoughtful adoption of AI into diagnostic, decision, documentation, and care-delivery activities within the clinic

And more. Unless Congress gets serious about bending the cost curve in health care, more towns, businesses, and families will see revenues & wages eroded.

Ms. Devon Houghton, a fourth grade teacher at Wood Elementary in Plainville, received the National Teaching Award in January. A resident of Bellingham, Ms. Houghton is the daughter & niece of local teachers and has been teaching herself for 20 years.

I came to her classroom to present Ms. Houghton with a certificate and take questions from her students. They asked great ones! Then I asked the teacher a question — what has changed most since she began teaching?

Her answer: smartphones and social media undermining attention spans. I agree! I’m working hard on the policy that ensures our children are raised by adults, not algorithms.