HHS Secretary Falsely Claims Biden Administration Doesn’t Push ‘Anti-Racism’ Policies on Doctors

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 30: Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra liste
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Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra falsely claimed the Biden administration does not incentivize doctors to implement “anti-racism” policies in exchange for more government funding.

Testifying before the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, Becerra was pressed on administration policies like paying doctors more money if they create an “anti-racism” plan that included a “clinic-wide review” of doctor ideology, including their “commitment to anti-racism.”

They must also define race as “a political and social construct, not a physiological one,” according to 2021 rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicine Services.

When Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL) questioned Becerra on the policies, the HHS secretary replied, “We don’t have a policy as you’ve described. Our policy is to try to tackle the disparities that we see in healthcare access.”

He also claimed the premise of Palmer’s question was “driven by mis- and disinformation.”

“I would challenge you to show me where in our policies we call anything we are doing anti-racism policies,” he continued.

Yet these policies exist in plain, public view.

Volume 86 of the Federal Register, under a section called “New Improvement Activity” with the subcategory “Achieving Health Equity” and the “Activity Title” of “Create and Implement an Anti-Racism Plan,” states the following:

Create and implement an anti-racism plan using the CMS Disparities Impact Statement or other anti-racism planning tools. The plan should include a clinic-wide review of existing tools and policies, such as value statements or clinical practice guidelines, to ensure that they include and are aligned with a commitment to anti-racism and an understanding of race as a political and social construct, not a physiological one. [Emphasis added].

The plan would use the CMS Disparities Impact Statement, a tool for “all health care stakeholders to achieve health equity for racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, sexual and gender minorities, individuals with limited English proficiency, and rural populations.”

In addition to the policy being published in the Federal Register, President Joe Biden signed — on his first day in office — an Executive Order “On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” which appears to have set much of this activity in motion.

The order states, in part, “Our country faces converging economic, health, and climate crises that have exposed and exacerbated inequities, while a historic movement for justice has highlighted the unbearable human costs of systemic racism.”

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm — a group focused on exposing and ending the new racialization of medicine in America — said in a statement that Becerra’s denial is “alarming.”

“It is alarming that Secretary Becerra denied the existence of an ‘anti-racism’ rule that his own agency has had on the books since 2021,” Goldfarb said. “Paying doctors higher reimbursements for embracing woke policies is wrong and illegal, and he needs to tell the public whether he supports it or will eliminate it.”

Becerra continued to deny the existence of the policy Friday morning, telling Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) that he could not comment on his question and that, “If you can point to me where there is a so-called ‘anti-racism’ plan, I can respond.”

“You asked a question about a plan that doesn’t exist,” Becerra said.

Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.

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