Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have totally different stances on well being care coverage in America, though within the 2024 presidential election, well being care has not performed as outstanding a task within the marketing campaign because it did in 2016 and even in 2020. In these campaigns these on the left proposed a radical overhaul of Obamacare, whereas Republicans sought to repeal it.
Harris has backed away from single-payer well being care
Throughout her 2020 presidential marketing campaign, Harris’ place on the way forward for non-public medical health insurance was typically complicated. In a main debate in 2019, Harris raised her hand when moderators requested candidates if they’d do away with non-public medical health insurance. However then quickly afterward, she stated no, she wouldn’t remove non-public medical health insurance.
In April 2019, Harris co-sponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” invoice, which might have ended non-public medical health insurance and changed it with a single government-run insurer for all People.
Harris launched a well being care plan in 2019 that will have put the U.S. on a path to government-backed medical health insurance over 10 years however would not remove non-public medical health insurance.
“We are going to enable non-public insurers to supply Medicare plans as a part of this method that adhere to strict Medicare necessities on prices and advantages,” Harris stated on the time. “Medicare will set the principles of the highway for these plans, together with value and high quality, and personal insurance coverage firms will play by these guidelines, not the opposite manner round.”
Trump typically brings up Harris’ previous backing of “Medicare for All” on the marketing campaign path, accusing her of pledging to “drive everybody onto socialist, government-run healthcare with excessive taxes and lethal wait occasions.”
Harris’ marketing campaign says she is not going to push for single-payer authorities medical health insurance, ought to she turn out to be president.
“I completely assist and during the last 4 years as vice chairman, non-public well being care choices, however what we have to do is preserve and develop the Inexpensive Care Act,” Harris stated in her debate towards Trump.
Trump says he has “ideas” of a well being care plan
Throughout the debate in Philadelphia, Trump stated he’d “substitute” Obamacare, which Republicans in Congress have largely given up on in recent times. Trump and a Republican Congress tried to “repeal and substitute” Obamacare in 2017 and failed.
“Obamacare was awful healthcare all the time was,” Trump stated. “It is not superb at the moment. And what I stated that if we provide you with one thing and we’re engaged on issues, we’ll do it and we’ll substitute it.”
One of many moderators requested for easy sure or no reply — does he nonetheless not have a well being care plan?
“I’ve ideas of a plan,” Trump stated. “I am not president proper now, but when we provide you with one thing, I might solely change it if we provide you with one thing that is higher and cheaper. And there are ideas and choices we’ve to do this, and you will be listening to about it within the not too distant future.”
At rallies, Harris has painted Trump’s assaults on the Inexpensive Care Act as endangering among the legislation’s hottest provisions, like guaranteeing protection for folks with pre-existing circumstances.
Trump has denied these claims. Whereas president, he repeatedly vowed that GOP efforts to interchange Obamacare on Capitol Hill would preserve protections for pre-existing circumstances.
Trump struggled to provide you with a well being care plan whereas he was president, typically saying he would have a plan out in “two weeks.”
As president, Trump opposed Obamacare after its passage, tweeting requires its repeal dozens of occasions, however probably the most promising try at repealing the legislation failed with the late Sen. John McCain’s dramatic thumbs-down vote in 2017.
Trump and Republicans have tried to repeal or weaken the Inexpensive Care Act in different methods, too. In December 2020, throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration requested the Supreme Court docket to overturn Obamacare. Its submitting got here on the identical day the federal government reported that near half 1,000,000 individuals who misplaced their medical health insurance amid the financial shutdown signed up for protection by HealthCare.gov.
Within the case, Texas and different GOP-led states argued that the ACA had in essence been rendered unconstitutional after Congress handed the 2017 Trump tax minimize, which had eradicated the unpopular fines for not having medical health insurance however left in place its insurance coverage protection requirement. The Supreme Court docket rejected the problem.
In 2018, the Trump administration quickly suspended danger adjustment funds to insurers — cash that is used to fund insurers with sicker, higher-cost sufferers. In 2017, the Trump administration shortened the enrollment interval and shut down the federal healthcare alternate for 12 hours almost each Sunday.
Harris needs to proceed Biden’s crackdown on pharmaceutical firms
Harris has referred to as for broadening components of the Inflation Discount Act that focus on drug costs, along with “cracking down” on drug producers and insurance coverage “middlemen” that drive up prices.
Harris forged the tie-breaking vote in 2022 for the Inflation Discount Act, which permits Medicare to barter drug costs for its greater than 60 million members.
Thus far, the Biden administration has set caps for the worth of plenty of medication for Medicare sufferers, together with Eliquis for blood clots, Entresto for coronary heart failure and insulin. These will take impact in 2026.
Harris backs extending the legislation’s ceilings on insulin costs and out-of-pocket spending past Medicare, as some in Congress have proposed. Harris additionally needs to broaden the negotiation program, permitting Medicare to set caps for extra medication at a sooner tempo.
Trump has additionally pledged to decrease drug costs, although his marketing campaign lately distanced itself from a proposal it had floated: reviving a controversial try to tie Medicare costs to different nations, which was rolled again in 2021 amid a number of authorized challenges.
Trump says he needs to mandate IVF protection, however Republicans in Congress aren’t so eager
Trump has stated he needs both the federal government to fund in vitro-fertilization (IVF) or to mandate that personal insurance coverage firms pay for the costly and intensive fertility process.
Infertility advocates have backed these sorts of proposals on Capitol Hill. One invoice touted by a handful of Home Republicans over the summer season would have required non-public medical health insurance plans to cowl the process.
However Republicans on Capitol Hill do not all essentially see eye to eye with Trump on mandating IVF protection. IVF is an costly process, costing between $12,000 and $24,000 per cycle. And plenty of {couples} want a number of IVF cycles to have a child, since solely about 36% of cycles leading to a reside beginning for girls ages 35-37 utilizing their very own eggs. That share drops to eight% per cycle for girls over 40 utilizing their very own eggs.
Senate Republicans have twice blocked laws that will shield entry to IVF and require insurance coverage firms to cowl fertility care, a vote Senate Democrats took to attract consideration to Trump’s statements about fertility protection. Solely two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted with Democrats in favor of the laws.
“If Donald Trump and Republicans need to shield folks’s proper to entry IVF, they will vote sure on it,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who sponsored the laws, instructed CBS Information forward of the vote. “He is proven that it solely takes one sentence from him, and the Republican Get together will fall in line behind him.”
Senate Republicans have repeatedly expressed assist for IVF, whereas claiming Democrats’ laws goes too far. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama launched their very own package deal to guard entry to IVF this yr, however Democrats rejected it, questioning its scope and enforcement measures.
Different Republicans, like former Gov. Nikki Haley, have stated entry to IVF is an efficient factor, however protection should not be mandated.
“Each of my youngsters have been merchandise of fertility [treatments],” she instructed CBS Information‘ “Face the Nation.” “We would like that choice to be obtainable to everybody. However the best way you do it’s you do not mandate protection. As a substitute, you go and also you be sure that protection is accessible, and also you just be sure you’re doing all the things you may to make it reasonably priced.”
Greater than a dozen states and Washington, D.C., already mandate that some non-public insurance coverage cowl IVF.
Kaia Hubbard and
Alexander Tin
contributed to this report.
