Now that our tough election has been fought and decided, it’s a brand-new day here in Virginia and opportunities for dramatic and much needed change abound. I am certainly excited for the Commonwealth and for our Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin (and excited that my seer-cred is renewed! Seriously, time is of the essence, and there is obviously much work to be done. The nation is watching, and our Governor-elect would do well to be fearless in picking sharp and thoughtful lieutenants whose loyalties lie in making impactful differences via innovative and, yes, at times provocative policy solutions.
Nowhere is this more important than when it comes to improving the health of Virginians and reform of the overall healthcare system in the Commonwealth. As such, one of Governor-elect Youngkin’s most important and telling cabinet picks will his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Resources. For my money, he could do no better than someone like Professor Peter J. Pitts, best known as the outspoken and innovative former Associate Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Beyond his FDA bona fides, Pitts has been a name well-known to activist-thinkers in healthcare policy circles for years. Currently serving as the president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and as a visiting professor at the University of Paris Medical School, the man has legit battle scars (the good kind). He knows that healthcare issues aren’t debated and decided by those sporting white lab coats and staring down the oculus of a microscope. As we’ve all learned from the COVID-19 rollercoaster, reforming healthcare is a rough and tumble business. It takes smarts, guts, perseverance, connections, patience, and pragmatism. That’s the Peter Pitts I know, and just the type that Youngkin needs to bring lasting change in the short four years he has in the big chair.
Governor-elect Youngkin represents smart change and a new era of Republican leadership. He fought a hard battle as a self-made happy warrior, trusted his gut, and blew a lot of minds in the process. He understands that it’s not about more and broader government control. It’s about government being a dynamic partner in advancing (among other things) healthcare in Virginia. Pitts, himself a happy warrior with a big, tireless brain, has been calling for embracing broader and smarter healthcare input and expertise for years. A charismatic talker and persuader if ever there was one, he is the rare public health expert who understands the strategic power of not just convening ‘strange bedfellows,’ if you will, for the common good, but actually listening and acting.
When it comes to some of the most contentious healthcare issues of the day, Pitts is neither a fence sitter nor a follower. He’s out in front early and unambiguous about his solutions. To wit:
– Government vaccine mandates? “Too politically divisive,” he said in February. “What will really move the needle (both literally and figuratively) are neighbors talking with friends, neighbors and relatives about their positive experiences and the feeling of freedom" after vaccination, said Pitts in USA Today (where he was a member of that newspaper’s Expert Panel on Vaccines.”) "Peer pressure is a potent tool in the battle against vaccine skepticism.”
– What about advancing health “equity?” Pitts wrote in July, “You can’t have health equity without health literacy.” (And to reinforce his point quoted John Kenneth Galbraith who said, “People are the common denominator of progress … Conquest of illiteracy comes first.”
– Getting life-saving drugs to market quicker? Pitts has a dynamic bibliography pages-long. His latest contribution is to suggest the FDA create a Deputy Commissioner for Regulatory Competitiveness. “Too many health policy experts, medical product developers, and investors view the FDA as a hindrance to innovation. They see the agency as slow, risk averse, and unpredictable. But the FDA can (and, indeed, must) become an innovation accelerator and a competitiveness enabler.”
– He’s been a leader in the debate to lower consumer health insurance co-payments. Back in 2010 he wrote, “There's a smart move that health insurers can make that'll lower costs for consumers and insurers alike, and improve patient health: Reduce co-pays on prescription drugs.”
That said, as a New York City boy, Pitts talks like a New Yorker, and acts like one. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He knows the Commonwealth well — certainly well enough to be seriously considered, as he has had lifelong family ties here and knows the terrain. Plus, nothing shakes things up quite as effectively than to bring in some fresh blood — especially when you have a lot of changes to make and a relatively short time to make them.
I suggest Governor-elect Youngkin think big when it comes to setting a national state-based example in substantial healthcare reform. That’s why I, along with a lot of people in the healthcare thinking space much smarter than me, could really get excited about seeing someone like Peter Pitts in his service as Virginia’s next Secretary of Health and Human Resources.
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