Kamala Harris is staking out well being, and particularly reproductive rights and reasonably priced healthcare, as a central problem in her historic marketing campaign for the US presidency, specialists say.
The primary advert for the Harris marketing campaign, launched on Thursday, prioritized bodily autonomy, security from gun violence, and reasonably priced healthcare alongside points like youngster poverty and the rule of regulation.
Reproductive rights shall be “far and away” the driving focus of Harris’s health-related messages – and her total marketing campaign – in addition to prioritization of reasonably priced healthcare and drugs, based on Drew Altman, president of KFF, a nonpartisan well being coverage group.
“If Harris wins this election, I think it would be because of abortion bans and because of Dobbs,” stated Greer Donley, affiliate professor on the College of Pittsburgh Faculty of Regulation. “Abortion is a huge issue this election cycle … and I think it will really help the campaign to capitalize on all of the momentum and all of the rage and anger about abortion bans.”
Within the wake of the Dobbs determination overturning the correct to abortion, the Biden-Harris administration has “done an extraordinary job on this issue with the tools that they have”, stated Sabrina Corlette, analysis professor at Georgetown College’s Heart on Well being Insurance coverage Reforms.
The administration solidified telehealth entry for abortion, allowed veterans affairs hospitals to supply abortion counseling and companies, clarified the Hipaa privateness guidelines to ensure well being workers don’t give protected info to regulation enforcement, and made certain that abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth and different reproductive healthcare are entitled to lodging below the Pregnant Employees Equity Act.
“They did a lot,” Donley stated.
In different elements of well being, the administration has constructed on the Inexpensive Care Act and the Medicaid program to develop protection and affordability, and commenced negotiating Medicare drug pricing.
“We have seen a real improvement in the numbers of people who have health insurance, and new resources to make health insurance more affordable,” Corlette stated. “I would expect a Harris administration to try to build on and expand the gains in the Affordable Care Act,” also referred to as Obamacare.
Harris’ marketing campaign would in all probability go on the offense, Altman stated, calling out Trump’s insurance policies and proposals to chop immensely widespread well being applications and contrasting them with features over the previous three years.
Her posture in all probability “will be characterized much more by attacking Trump on positions she’ll claim he will take on healthcare than by advancing her own healthcare positions”, Altman stated.
As a senator, Harris was the primary to co-sponsor the Medicare for All laws put ahead by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and as a presidential candidate in 2020, she unveiled her personal model of an identical plan.
In her time in Congress, Harris additionally sponsored a invoice to ban sure abortion restrictions and she or he launched a invoice to require private and non-private well being insurers to cowl drugs that stop HIV infections.
However “I don’t think the past is going to be terribly relevant”, Altman stated. As a presidential candidate, Harris wanted to rally the bottom and enchantment to undecided voters, he stated. “I would expect her to continue the kind of aggressive incrementalism that we’ve seen from the Biden administration.”
One of many first healthcare battles going through a Harris administration can be the extension of the Inexpensive Care Act tax credit initially enacted in 2021, now scheduled to run out on the finish of 2025, Corlette stated. “That’s going to be a really important, critical battle, and I expect that she will champion a permanent extension of those – because that’s just had a huge impact on the affordability of health insurance coverage for a lot of people.”
Republicans have proposed capping and slicing Medicaid, a “very popular” program that covers nearly 90 million Individuals, Altman stated. Some conservative Republican teams have additionally put ahead basic adjustments to Medicare, which Altman calls “politically a sacrosanct program”.
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Trump and Vance have proposed weakening protections for folks with pre-existing circumstances, that are “immensely popular”, Altman stated, in addition to main adjustments to and even repealing the Inexpensive Care Act.
Republican teams have additionally revived a concentrate on tax-preferred well being financial savings accounts, in an effort to make healthcare extra consumer-driven.
“What you’d likely see under a Trump administration is a dismantling of the federal government’s involvement in healthcare,” Corlette stated. But “one of the biggest pain points for Americans right now is the cost of healthcare – not just the cost of health insurance, but actually the cost when they go to the hospital or go to the doctor,” she stated.
On abortion, Trump has proposed leaving the difficulty to the states – almost one-third of which have whole abortion bans.
“That is not a position that is consistent with the majority of the American people,” Donley stated. “It’s radical.”
Trump’s abortion plank additionally invokes fetal personhood, which may make abortion, IVF procedures, and miscarriages prosecutable as homicide. The idea of fetal personhood, whereby a zygote, embryo or fetus has the identical rights as folks, is “very scary. It’s scary as everyone suggests it is, and not just for abortion,” Donley stated.
Whereas Biden’s administration has made main strides on abortion, “it’s never been an issue that I think he personally has felt comfortable with,” Corlette stated. Biden not often even says the phrase “abortion”.
Harris, however, has been rather more outspoken about reproductive rights.
Whoever wins this election may at some point nominate new justices to the US supreme courtroom, if a few of the older justices have been to depart the courtroom.
“If Harris serves eight years, then she has the potential to really change the composition of the supreme court,” Donley stated.
“That could be a method to get Dobbs overturned. And obviously that would have implications that are far bigger than abortion.”
