Huffman, Health Secretary Becerra tout Biden-era health care investments in Petaluma visit

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra visited Sonoma County Monday to publicize President Joe Biden’s efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs, as well as to underscore the administration’s support for the Affordable Care Act and the nation’s vast network of federally-funded health centers.

Becerra was joined at Petaluma Health Center by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who hosted the visit, with both lauding the Biden administration’s commitment to expanding federal health coverage and support for community health infrastructure.

Becerra said Vice President Kamala Harris was poised to continue those efforts if elected president in November.

“I know what Vice President Harris would do. I can’t guarantee you what would happen if it weren’t the vice president” winning, Becerra said, during a brief press conference following the tour.

Becerra said at the height of the pandemic, federally supported health centers like Petaluma Health Center “were responsible for some 22, 23 million Americans having access to the COVID-19 vaccine.”

“(Community clinics) have also now, in the last year or so, treated 31 million Americans at almost no cost or affordable cost for care they might not otherwise be able to get,” he added.

The visit drew members of the board of directors of the Petaluma clinic, as well as Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, vice chair of that body, and County Executive Christina Rivera. Health center staff, including CEO Pedro Toledo and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nurit Licht, among others, also joined the tour.

The group followed Becerra and Huffman as clinic staff highlighted key services offered at the facility.

Licht described maternity services at the facility that included delivery services, obstetrics and gynecology, family physicians and certified nurse midwives.

Becerra asked if the facility also did deliveries — a sore spot in health care nationwide as providers contract or eliminate obstetrics services, especially in suburban and rural places.

Licht said deliveries for Petaluma-area mothers are done at Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, owned and operated by the same hospital giant that closed the birth center at Petaluma Valley Hospital in 2023.

Huffman chimed in, noting that the maternity ward closure has forced local mothers to travel to Santa Rosa for delivery services.

“With Petaluma Valley (Hospital), I know they’ve been making life difficult for all of us,” Huffman said, referring to Providence, which purchased the hospital in 2020 from the Petaluma Health Care District.

Responding to that criticism, Garry Olney, chief executive of Providence Northern California, said in a statement Tuesday that earlier this year Providence and the district determined that reopening the Petaluma Valley Hospital’s birthing center wasn’t feasible because of a difficulty staffing local anesthesiologists and obstetricians.

“Based on findings from our community health needs assessment, we committed to investing an additional $9.9M dedicated to women’s health and behavioral health services in Sonoma County,” Olney said in the statement.

Providence said that as part of its investment agreement with the district, it is offering transportation to and from Memorial Hospital and the Petaluma Valley Hospital for birthing and ancillary services for those families needing assistance.

During the tour, Becerra recognized the need for birthing services.

“I know so many clinics that would love to have OB,” Becerra said.

Licht responded the health center has been providing uninterrupted OB services for years because of the need, from pregnancies through the first year of postpartum.

When the group reached the clinic’s mental health services area, Ken Weinstock, the clinic’s director behavioral health came out of a closed therapy room. When asked to describe the clinic’s mental health services, Weinstock respectfully excused himself, indicating that he was in a session with a client.

“Good for him,” said Becerra, a former California attorney general and congressman who is the nation’s first Latino health and human services secretary. “He knows his priorities.”

The visit served to highlight Biden’s cost prescription drug law, part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The law significantly lowered the cost of such drugs as insulin, which caps a months supply at at $35, and makes certain recommended preventative vaccines free for adults with Medicare prescription drug coverage.

Huffman, a fervent Trump critic, also used the visit to contrast the choice before voters as Harris and the former president square off in the race for the White House. Under Trump, Huffman said, federal support of community health initiatives would falter.

“You’re not going to see any more state-of-the-art clinics built like the one in Supervisor Hopkins’ district in Guerneville, and this one and so many up and down my district,” Huffman said.

“We’ve got these spectacular community resources because of those investments and that would dry up,” he added.

The Press Democrat on Tuesday reached out to the Trump campaign for a response.

After Becerra and Huffman’s visit, Toledo, Petaluma Health Center’s CEO, said that under President Trump “there was actually quite a bit of support for community health, both from the Congress and the president.

“We didn’t grow as quickly as under previous administrations, but we continued to grow, even under President Trump’s administration,” he said.

Toledo added that an “unprecedented funding” was directed toward community health centers to treat the uninsured at the start of the pandemic, while Trump was still in office.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.