Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have different positions on health care policy in America, although health care has not played as prominent a role in the campaign in the 2024 presidential election as it did in 2016 or even 2020. In those campaigns, those on the left have argued proposed a radical overhaul of Obamacare, while Republicans tried to repeal it.
Harris has withdrawn from single-payer health care
During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris’ position on the future of private health insurance was at times confusing. During a 2019 primary debate, Harris raised her hand when moderators asked candidates if they wanted to get rid of private health insurance. But shortly afterwards she said no, she would not abolish private health insurance.
In April 2019, Harris co-sponsored Senator Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill would have ended private health insurance and replaced it with a single government-run insurer for all Americans.
Harris released a health care plan in 2019 that would have put the U.S. on a decade-long path to government-backed health insurance, but would not eliminate private health insurance.
“We will allow private insurers to offer Medicare plans as part of this system, which meet strict Medicare cost-benefit requirements,” Harris said at the time. “Medicare will set the rules for these plans, including price and quality, and private insurance companies will follow those rules, not the other way around.”
Trump often brings up Harris’ past support for “Medicare for All” during his campaign, accusing her of “forcing everyone into a socialist, government-run health care system with high taxes and deadly wait times.”
Harris’ campaign says she will not push for single-payer health insurance if she becomes president.
“I have absolutely supported private health care options for the last four years as vice president, but what we need to do is preserve and grow the Affordable Care Act,” Harris said in her debate against Trump.
Trump says he has ‘concepts’ for a health care plan
During the debate in Philadelphia, Trump said he would “replace” Obamacare, something Republicans in Congress have largely abandoned in recent years. Trump and a Republican Congress tried that “repeal and replace” Obamacare in 2017 and failed.
“Obamacare was always bad health care,” Trump said. “It’s not that good today. And what I said, if we figure something out and work on things, we’re going to do it and we’re going to replace it.”
One of the moderators asked for a simple yes or no answer: does he still have no health insurance?
“I have concepts for a plan,” Trump said. “I’m not president right now, but if we come up with something, I would only change it if we come up with something better and cheaper. And there are concepts and options that we need to do that, and you’ll be hearing more about them in the not too distant future.”
At rallies, Harris has portrayed Trump’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act as a threat to some of the law’s most popular provisions, such as guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.
Trump has denied these claims. While president, he repeatedly promised that the Republican Party’s efforts to replace Obamacare on Capitol Hill would preserve protections for pre-existing conditions.
Trump struggled to come up with a health care plan during his presidency, sometimes saying he would have a plan ready in “two weeks.”
As president, Trump opposed Obamacare after its passage. tweet has called for its repeal dozens of times, but the most promising attempt to repeal the law failed with the late Senator John McCain’s dramatic statements. thumbs upone vote in 2017.
Trump and Republicans have also tried to repeal or weaken the Affordable Care Act in other ways. In December 2020, during the coronavirus pandemicthe Trump administration the Supreme Court asked to overturn Obamacare. The filing came the same day the government reported that nearly half a million people who lost their health insurance during the economic shutdown had signed up for coverage through HealthCare.gov.
In the case, Texas and other Republican Party-led states argued that the ACA had become essentially unconstitutional after Congress passed the 2017 Trump tax cut, which eliminated unpopular penalties for not having health insurance, but the insurance coverage requirement was maintained. The Supreme Court rejected the challenge.
In 2018, the Trump administration temporarily folded suspended risk adjustment payments to insurers – money used to fund insurers with sicker, more expensive patients. In 2017, the Trump administration shortened the enrollment period and closed the federal healthcare exchange for 12 hours almost every Sunday.
Harris wants to continue Biden’s crackdown on pharmaceutical companies
Harris has called for broadening parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that target drug prices, in addition to a “crackdown” on drugmakers and insurance intermediaries that drive up costs.
Harris cast the deciding vote in 2022 for the Inflation Reduction Act, which allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for its more than 60 million members.
So far, the Biden administration has set caps on the price of a number of drugs for Medicare patients, including Eliquis for blood clots, Entresto for heart failure and insulin. These will come into effect in 2026.
Harris supports expanding legal caps on insulin prices and out-of-pocket spending outside of Medicare, as some in Congress have proposed. Harris also wants to expand the bargaining program, which would allow Medicare to set caps on more drugs at a faster pace.
Trump has also pledged to lower drug prices, though his campaign recently distanced itself from a proposal it floated: reviving a controversial effort to tie Medicare prices to other countries, which was reversed in 2021 due to multiple legal challenges.
Trump says he wants to make IVF coverage mandatory, but Republicans in Congress aren’t keen on that
Trump has said he wants the government to fund in vitro fertilization (IVF) or for private insurance companies to pay for the expensive and intensive fertility procedure.
Infertility advocates have supported these types of proposals on Capitol Hill. One bill touted by a handful of Republicans in the House of Representatives this summer would require private health insurance to cover the procedure.
But Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t all necessarily agree 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 baby, as in women between the ages of 35 and 37, only about 36% of cycles result in a live birth using their own eggs. That percentage drops to 8% per cycle for women over 40 who use their own eggs.
Republicans in the Senate have it twice legislation blocked that would protect access to IVF and require insurance companies to cover fertility care, a vote Senate Democrats took to draw attention to Trump’s statements on fertility coverage. Only two Republicans – Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – voted with Democrats in favor of the legislation.
“If Donald Trump and the Republicans want to protect people’s right to access IVF, they can vote yes on it,” Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who sponsored the legislation, told CBS News ahead of the vote. “He has shown that all it takes is one sentence from him and the Republican Party will stand behind him.”
Senate Republicans have repeatedly expressed support for IVF, while claiming the Democrats’ legislation goes too far. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Katie Britt of Alabama introduced their own package this year to protect access to IVF, but Democrats rejected it and questioned its scope and enforcement measures.
Other Republicans, such as former Gov. Nikki Haley, have said access to IVF is a good thing, but coverage should not be made mandatory.
“Both my children were fertility products [treatments],” she told CBS News‘ ‘Look at the nation.’ “We want that option to be available to everyone. But the way you do it is you don’t make coverage mandatory. Instead, you make sure coverage is accessible, and you make sure you do everything you can can make it affordable.”
More than a dozen states and Washington DC already require some private insurance plans to cover IVF.
Kaia Hubbard and Alexander Tin contributed to this report.
