Kate Bolz, Nebraska State Senator

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Cutting the Rising Price of Insulin

In response to the rising cost of insulin, Nebraska Senator Kate Bolz introduced legislation that would cap the price per month at $100. The bill follows Colorado’s first-in-the-nation insulin price cap law that was sponsored by NewDEAL Leader Senator Kerry Donovan and signed by NewDEAL Honorary Vice Chair Governor Jared Polis. Read more about the Nebraska bill, which Bolz explains is necessary for cutting the prices that have reportedly increased by over 500% in the past fourteen years. “The 174,000 Nebraskans with diabetes,” Bolz says, “these are our relatives, friends, and neighbors who have to make decisions they know will damage their health, simply because they can no longer afford their insulin dosage.”

Feed to Achieve Act

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Problem

Food insecurity in children is associated with nutrient deficiencies, increased risk for obesity, poor health, behavior problems, decreased social skills, and academic failure. School-age children from food insecure households have lower grades, more anxiety and aggression, and higher absenteeism and tardiness.

Solution

Child Nutrition Programs have been shown to effectively improve nutritional health and academic performance, reduce behavior programs, prevent obesity, introduce children to new and local foods, improve the school climate and help decrease families’ food budgets. Senator Unger therefore proposed the Feed to Achieve Act, which increases participation in these programs by improving the meal quality, offering multiple delivery systems, and by incorporating more local foods into school menus. This program promotes and supports federal Child Nutrition Programs that are currently in place throughout West Virginia schools and promotes a partnership with the private sector to combat childhood hunger issues in innovative ways.

Public-Private Partnerships for Crisis Care

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Problem

Unaddressed mental health issues drive costs in both our criminal justice and homelessness systems, and contribute to rising healthcare costs. Only 5-9% of emergency room visits are for mental health crises, but the average stay is 17 hours. Having 24-hour drop-off triage centers helps people get connected to the services they need, and ultimately leads to long-term solutions. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient funding for these centers to make them effective.

Solution

County Commissioner Bailey is proposing a system where local government can work with private sector entities, like hospitals and insurers, who pay much of the cost of this problem, to measure the savings from triage centers and get a portion of the savings as a revenue stream to back social finance tools that provide the capital to run the centers. By working with hospitals, insurers, social finance, and public entities to fund 24-hour triage centers for people in mental health crisis, the county can offer better treatment while lowering the cost to everyone for crisis mental health care and unnecessary incarceration.”

Sustainable Community Farming Initiative

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Problem

So few people have access to — or enough income to afford — fresh, organic, local vegetables. Many children go hungry and don’t receive the sustenance they need to grow and excel in school. Additionally, the use of pesticides and hormones in subsidized agribusiness and the fossil fuels expended bringing those products to market are substantial. All of this means that the environmental costs of modern agriculture are enormous and people’s ability to acquire healthy foods is too costly to their economic well being and our environment.

Solution

Mayor Dan Drew is helping create a grassroots community farming co-op that will source fresh, local, organic vegetables for low prices on public land and make them available to the entire community. This initiative simultaneously combats climate change, pesticide and hormone use, while increasing sustainability and economic fairness.. The city of Middletown has already issued a call for proposals from farmers throughout the state for what they would grow and how they would price the associated co-op shares. The City will lease publicly-owned farmland to these farmers at a low rate to keep costs down. They will also appoint a grassroots community review board to review proposals and make recommendations about the most efficacious amongst them. This approach will ensure that a sense of market competition is brought into the proposal and pricing process and will give the people of the community the final word in what will be planted and harvested and how much it will cost. Middletown has also garnered interest from the local community college to partner in some type of conservation-related educational initiative related to the project. 

Aboveground Storage Tank and Public Water Supply Protection Act

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Problem

Spills or leaks from aboveground storage tanks can contaminate local water sources, hurting local economies and communities as they must redirect funds to address the problem.

Solution

Senator Unger passed legislation this year which outlines a reasonable regulatory structure to ensure all above ground storage tanks are meeting state standards. The bill requires the creation of a registry of aboveground storage tanks in order to aid inspection and management of the tanks. This legislation also requires the Bureau for Public Health to engage federal agencies in gathering medical information to assess potential long-term health effects associated with tank spills. This approach takes existing disjointed agencies and establishes a framework where necessary information is obtained and shared more efficiently between all parties involved.

Secure Health Data

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Problem

Health insurance companies have become prime targets for hackers and foreign governments looking to steal highly confidential personal data of American citizens. 

Solution

Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff co-sponsored legislation that requires health insurance companies to develop a comprehensive information security program to safeguard the personal information of their enrollees. The bill provides these companies with minimum consumer data privacy requirements that they need to meet, but allows them the autonomy to decide what they need to do in order to meet those requirements. 

Feed to Achieve (FTA) – Summer Intergeneration Community Strong Initiative

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Problem

More than 1 in 5 West Virginia children live in a household that does not have sufficient access to food. Food insecurity in children is associated with nutrient deficiencies, increased risk for obesity, poor health, behavior problems, decreased social skills, and academic failure. School-age children from food insecure households have lower grades, more anxiety and aggression, and higher absenteeism and tardiness. Meanwhile, 28% of people aged 65 and older live alone and are at higher risk of suffering from loneliness, which can lead to poor physical and mental health.

Solution

Senator John Unger proposed the Summer Intergeneration Community Strong Initiative as part of his Feed to Achieve Act to help address these dual goals. This innovative, intergenerational interactive initiative brings children and senior citizens together during the summer to foster supportive relationships that build strong, healthy communities year round. Children benefit from a nutritious meal and a caring adult who shows them attention and mentors them. And seniors are given an opportunity to combat feelings of isolation and loneliness by providing a meaningful connection to the community.

Three-Pronged Approach to Saving Lives

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Problem

Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in the United States, killing 1,000 people per day. Data shows that the first minutes of a cardiac arrest incident are most critical to survival, with each minute without resuscitation decreasing an individual’s chance of survival by 7-10 percent. Often times, paramedics are unable to arrive at the scene until eight minutes after an incident, which is the time it takes for patients to experience irreparable brain damage. Trained individuals, innovative technology, and lifesaving tools are available to empower everyday citizens to help medical professionals save lives, but how do we connect the three to save lives?

Solution

Technology allows us to train and empower citizens to take action and save lives. Along with community partners, I launched PulsePoint, a smartphone app that alerts bystanders of cardiac arrest incidents which require CPR as soon as a 911 call is made. To ensure that these bystanders were trained and prepared, I simultaneously expanded Pittsburgh’s community Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) training efforts and passed mandatory registration of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). This innovative solution has already expanded the number of individuals equipped to respond to cardiac arrest, deploy CPR, utilize an AED, and intervene during the crucial first minutes of cardiac arrest.

Thrive by Three

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Problem

Exposure to chronic stressors (poverty and discrimination) or adverse childhood experiences (abuse and neglect, parental mental illness and substance abuse, or family violence) can disrupt babies’ healthy brain development, creating lifelong negative impacts on learning, behavior, and health. Too many young children are starting life at a disadvantage, leading to poor health and education outcomes which make life much harder for the individuals and create high costs for society (treating complex physical/mental health issues, substance abuse treatment, criminal justice costs, etc.).

Solution

Scientists and economists agree that investing in high-quality early childhood development programs – such as home-visiting programs, early care and education, developmental and behavioral health services, and parenting and family support- produces the greatest benefits to children, families and society, yet public investment in very young children is low. I worked with local child advocates to establish and secure funding for a Thrive by Three Fund which will help our most vulnerable babies, toddlers and their families with the tools they need to be healthy, educated, and resilient. We will be tracking progress toward a number of outcomes, including:  more prenatal care for young mothers in the first trimester; fewer preterm and low birthweight babies; fewer mothers and fathers reporting hardships and emotional distress during pregnancy and the child’s first three years of life; less child maltreatment and entries into foster care among infants and toddlers; and increased access to high-quality care and early learning opportunities.

Outcome-Based Reimbursement for Drug Rehab

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Problem

Today, big money in the drug treatment industry comes through failure. Together, the ACA and Mental Health Parity Act ensure that drug addiction relapse is always covered as an essential health benefit, and that children remain on their parents’ policies until age 26 and cannot be excluded due to a pre-existing condition. This has provided a financial incentive for corrupt private providers to keep the patient in an endless cycle of rehab.

Solution

I propose to extend Medicare’s outcome-based reimbursement model to the world of private insurance payments for drug rehabilitation. Devising a formula similar to Medicare’s that financially favors the good providers could reward the best recovery centers while shuttering rogue operators. This solution will help clean up the fraud and abuse in the treatment industry, which in turn will save lives from drug overdoses.

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