The News
Healthcare has made only “a few cameos” this election cycle, but in the campaigns’ final days, debates over future policy stances are growing louder.
Democrats have been vocal in their criticism of what they perceive as the threat to Americans’ medical care presented by Donald Trump and his alliance with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a noted vaccine skeptic. Republicans, meanwhile, have floated making large-scale changes to government-funded healthcare programs in the name of efficiency.
Affordability — both of healthcare and medication — remains a huge issue for voters, and Republicans and Democrats have proposed vastly different ways to tackle costs. While Harris has said she would work to expand and improve the Affordable Care Act and lower prescription drug costs on common medications for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, like insulin, Trump has suggested replacing the ACA, although what he would replace it with remains unclear.
SIGNALS
Affordable Care Act seen as at risk if Trump wins
The election presents a “fork-in-the-road” for the Obama administration’s signature healthcare bill, the Affordable Care Act, a senior KFF health policy researcher told NPR. Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson have floated repealing major provisions of the law, which enjoys overwhelming popularity, if Trump wins — although the Trump campaign has sought to distance itself from Johnson’s policy proposals. Still, Trump has shown he is “malleable to conventional conservative health policy,” Vox wrote, and if he retakes the White House he is expected to endorse cutting both healthcare regulations and spending, which could erode protections for people with preexisting conditions or give insurers more license to raise premiums for groups with higher risks of costly health problems.
Public health most at risk under RFK Jr.
Former presidential candidate and long-time vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested Trump would give him control of federal health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control , the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration. Together, these institutions “are recognized as the world’s gold standards” in public health and medical research, Axios wrote, and giving Kennedy power over them would mean less trust in both healthcare and medical research overall and the erosion of vital services, like childhood vaccines and fluoride treatment for drinking water — worsening the country’s health outcomes. A weaker CDC — the country’s top public health body — would mean “we are less safe, [and] we are less healthy,” a former director of the organization warned.
Harris presidency would likely see incremental healthcare changes
Having once embraced Medicare-for-all, Harris no longer supports such dramatic healthcare policy goals, having learned “the importance of incremental progress” as vice president, her domestic policy advisor told The Washington Post. The small, targeted changes her campaign has instead proposed include using tax credits to bring down ACA plan premiums, capping prescription drug prices at $2,000 for all Americans, and canceling medical debt, although she hasn’t outlined how exactly she would do the latter. Instead of broader health policy, abortion has become “the most prominent health care campaign issue,” KFF Health News wrote, and Harris has distinguished herself by pledging to restore and protect nationwide access to abortion, contraceptives, and women’s reproductive health.