How do Trump and Harris’ health and policy plans compare for the 2024 election

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have different views on health care policy in America, although in the 2024 presidential election, health care has not played a prominent role in the campaign as did it in 2016 or even in 2020. In the campaigns they are in, the Left proposed a radical reform of Obamacare, while the Republicans wanted to repeal it.

Harris has turned his back on one-person health care

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Harris’ position on the future of health insurance was at times confusing. In the 2019 primary debate, Harris raised his hand when executives asked voters whether they would drop health insurance. But soon after that, he said no, he would not eliminate health insurance.

In April 2019, Harris supported Sen. Bill Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All”, which would have ended private health insurance and replaced it with a single, government-run insurance plan for all Americans.

Harris released a health care plan in 2019 that would have put the US on a path to government-sponsored health insurance for more than 10 years but will not end health insurance.

“We will allow private insurers to offer Medicare plans as part of this system that adheres to Medicare’s strict cost and benefit requirements,” Harris said at the time. “Medicare will set the road rules for these plans, including price and quality, and private insurance companies will play by those rules, not the other way around.”

Trump often brought up Harris’ past support of “Medicare for All” on the campaign trail, accusing him of “forcing everyone to follow socialist, government-run health care through high taxes and deadly waiting times.”

Harris’ campaign says he won’t push for individual health insurance, if he becomes president.

“I fully support, even for the last four years as vice president, health care options, but what we need to do is preserve and expand the Affordable Care Act,” Harris said. said in his interview against Trump.

Trump says he has “ideas” for a health care plan

During the debate in Philadelphia, Trump said he would “stop” Obamacare, which Republicans in Congress have largely rejected in recent years. Trump and the Republican Congress tried to “delete and replace” Obamacare in 2017 and it failed.

“Obamacare was always health care,” Trump said. “It’s not very good today. And what I said is if we come up with something and we’re working on things, we’ll do it and we’ll replace it.”

One of the directors asked a simple yes or no answer – do you still not have a health care plan?

“I have a plan,” Trump said. “I am not the president now, but if we come up with something, I will change it only if we come up with something good and cheap. And there are ideas and options that we have to do, and you shall. I shall hear of it in the not too distant future.”

At the hearings, Harris painted Trump’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act as jeopardizing some of the law’s most popular provisions, such as ensuring coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.

Trump denied those claims. While he was president, he repeatedly vowed that the GOP’s effort to replace Obamacare on Capitol Hill would preserve protections for the status quo.

Trump struggled to come up with a health care plan during his presidency, at times saying he would have a plan “in two weeks.”

As president, Trump opposed Obamacare after it passed, tweeting has called for it to be repealed many times, but the most promising effort to repeal the law failed with the miracle of Sen. John McCain. thumb-downI voted in 2017.

Trump and Republicans have tried to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act in other ways as well. In December 2020, during the coronavirus epidemicthe Trump administration asked the Supreme Court overturning Obamacare. Its filing came the same day the government reported that nearly half a million people who lost health insurance during the recession signed up for coverage through HealthCare.gov.

In this case, Texas and other GOP-led states argued that the ACA was essentially rendered unconstitutional after Congress passed Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which had eliminated unfavorable penalties for not having health insurance but left its insurance requirement in place. The Supreme Court rejected challenge.

In 2018, the Trump administration temporarily suspended insurance premiums – money used to help insurers with sick, high-cost patients. In 2017, the Trump administration shortened the enrollment period and closed the health care exchange for 12 hours almost every Sunday.

Harris wants to continue Biden’s extortion of pharmaceutical companies

Harris called for an expansion of parts of the Affordable Care Act that target drug prices, without “cutting out” drug manufacturers and “middlemen” who drive up costs.

Harris voted in 2022 for the Affordable Care Act, which allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for its more than 60 million members.

So far, the Biden administration has created price caps for many drugs for Medicare patients, including Eliquis for blood clots, Entresto for heart failure and insulin. These will come into force in 2026.

Harris hopes to expand the legislative ceiling on insulin prices and spending outside of Medicare, as some in Congress have suggested. Harris also wants to expand the consultation program, allowing Medicare to set caps for more drugs at a faster rate.

Trump has also promised to lower drug prices, though his campaign recently distanced itself from a proposal it had floated: renewing a controversial attempt to unify Medicare prices in other states, which was reversed in 2021 amid numerous legal challenges.

Trump says he wants to mandate IVF coverage, but Republicans in Congress aren’t so keen

Trump said he wants the government to fund in vitro-fertilization (IVF) or mandate that private insurance companies pay for the expensive and intensive fertility treatment.

Infertility advocates have supported these types of proposals on Capitol Hill. One bill introduced by several House Republicans over the summer would have required health insurance plans to pay for the procedure.

But Republicans on Capitol Hill aren’t exactly on board with Trump on mandating IVF coverage. IVF is an expensive procedure, costing between $12,000 and $24,000 per cycle. And many couples need multiple IVF cycles to have a child, as only about 36% of cycles result in fertility for women aged 35-37 using their own eggs. That percentage drops to 8% per cycle for women over 40 who use their own eggs.

Senate Republicans have two prohibited by law that would protect access to IVF and require insurance companies to pay for fertility care, the vote of Senate Democrats took to focus on Trump’s statements about fertility protection. Only two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted with Democrats for the legislation.

“If Donald Trump and the Republicans want to protect people’s right to IVF, they can vote yes,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who sponsored the legislation, told CBS News before the vote. “He’s shown that it only takes one statement from him, and the Republican Party will fall behind him.”

Senate Republicans have repeatedly expressed support for IVF, while saying the Democrats’ legislation is too extreme. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama introduced their own package to protect access to IVF this year, but Democrats rejected it, questioning its scope and implementation measures.

Some Republicans, like former Gov. Nikki Haley, have said access to IVF is a good thing, but coverage should not be mandated.

“Both my children were products of birth [treatments],” he he told CBS News“You face the Nation. “We want that option to be available to everyone. But the way you do it is you don’t mandate that people provide coverage. Instead, you go and make sure that coverage goes. available, and you make sure you do everything you can to make it easy.”

More than a dozen states and Washington, DC, have mandated that some private insurance plans cover IVF.

Kaia Hubbard and Alexander Tin contributed to this report.