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 job 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 personal medical insurance was typically complicated. In a main debate in 2019, Harris raised her hand when moderators requested candidates if they might eliminate personal medical insurance. However then quickly afterward, she stated no, she wouldn’t remove personal medical insurance.
In April 2019, Harris co-sponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” invoice, which might have ended personal medical 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 insurance over 10 years however would not remove personal medical insurance.
“We are going to permit personal insurers to supply Medicare plans as a part of this technique that adhere to strict Medicare necessities on prices and advantages,” Harris stated on the time. “Medicare will set the principles of the street for these plans, together with worth and high quality, and personal insurance coverage corporations will play by these guidelines, not the opposite manner round.”
Trump usually brings up Harris’ previous backing of “Medicare for All” on the marketing campaign path, accusing her of pledging to “pressure 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 insurance, ought to she turn into president.
“I completely help and during the last 4 years as vp, personal well being care choices, however what we have to do is preserve and develop the Reasonably priced Care Act,” Harris stated in her debate towards Trump.
Trump says he has “ideas” of a well being care plan
In the course of the debate in Philadelphia, Trump stated he’d “exchange” Obamacare, which Republicans in Congress have largely given up on lately. Trump and a Republican Congress tried to “repeal and exchange” Obamacare in 2017 and failed.
“Obamacare was awful healthcare at all times was,” Trump stated. “It is not excellent right now. And what I stated that if we give you one thing and we’re engaged on issues, we’ll do it and we’ll exchange 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 give you one thing, I’d solely change it if we give you one thing that is higher and cheaper. And there are ideas and choices now we have 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 Reasonably priced Care Act as endangering among the regulation’s hottest provisions, like making certain protection for folks with pre-existing situations.
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 situations.
Trump struggled to give you 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 essentially the most promising try at repealing the regulation failed with the late Sen. John McCain’s dramatic thumbs-down vote in 2017.
Trump and Republicans have tried to repeal or weaken the Reasonably priced 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 one million individuals who misplaced their medical insurance amid the financial shutdown signed up for protection by way of 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 reduce, which had eradicated the unpopular fines for not having medical 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 change for 12 hours almost each Sunday.
Harris needs to proceed Biden’s crackdown on pharmaceutical corporations
Harris has referred to as for broadening elements 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 solid 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 a variety 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 regulation’s ceilings on insulin costs and out-of-pocket spending past Medicare, as some in Congress have proposed. Harris additionally needs to increase the negotiation program, permitting Medicare to set caps for extra medication at a quicker 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 and 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 non-public insurance coverage corporations 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 time would have required personal medical 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 lots of {couples} want a number of IVF cycles to have a child, since solely about 36% of cycles leading to a dwell start for girls ages 35-37 utilizing their very own eggs. That proportion 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 corporations 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 wish 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 help for IVF, whereas claiming Democrats’ laws goes too far. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama launched their very own bundle to guard entry to IVF this 12 months, 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 had been merchandise of fertility [treatments],” she instructed CBS Information‘ “Face the Nation.” “We wish that choice to be accessible to everybody. However the way in which you do it’s you do not mandate protection. As a substitute, you go and also you ensure that protection is accessible, and also you just be sure you’re doing all the things you’ll be able to to make it inexpensive.”
Greater than a dozen states and Washington, D.C., already mandate that some personal insurance coverage cowl IVF.
Kaia Hubbard and
contributed to this report.