Health, specifically reproductive rights and affordable health care, is a central issue for Kamala Harris in her historic campaign for the US presidency, experts say.
Harris’ first campaign ad, released Thursday, prioritized bodily autonomy, safety from gun violence and affordable health care, alongside issues like child poverty and the rule of law.
According to Drew Altman, president of KFF, a nonpartisan health policy organization, reproductive rights will be “by far” the most important focus of Harris’ health-related messages — and her entire campaign — as will prioritizing affordable health care and medications.
“If Harris wins this election, I think it’s going to be because of abortion bans and it’s going to be because of Dobbs,” said Greer Donley, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. “Abortion is a huge issue in this election cycle … and I think it’s going to really help the campaign to capitalize on all the momentum and all the anger and rage over abortion bans.”
Following the Dobbs ruling, which struck down abortion rights, the Biden-Harris administration “has done an extraordinary job in this area with the tools at its disposal,” said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.
The administration has expanded access to telehealth abortions, allowed Veterans Affairs hospitals to provide abortion counseling and services, clarified HIPAA privacy rules to ensure that health care workers do not provide protected information to law enforcement, and made abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, and other forms of reproductive health care eligible for accommodations under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
“They’ve done a lot,” Donley said.
In other areas of health care, the government is building on the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid program to expand coverage and affordability, and has begun negotiating Medicare drug prices.
“We’ve seen real improvements in the number of people with health insurance, and new tools to make health insurance more affordable,” Corlette said. “I would expect a Harris administration to try to build on and extend the gains in the Affordable Care Act,” also known as Obamacare.
According to Altman, Harris’ campaign would likely go on the offensive, blasting Trump’s policies and proposals to cut hugely popular health care programs and comparing them to the progress made over the past three years.
Her stance will likely be “much more characterized by attacks on Trump on positions she claims he will take on health care than by promoting her own positions on health care,” Altman said.
As a senator, Harris was the first to co-sponsor the Medicare for All legislation introduced by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. As a presidential candidate in 2020, she introduced her own version of a similar plan.
During her time in Congress, Harris also introduced a bill to ban certain restrictions on abortion and introduced a bill to require public and private health insurers to cover medications that prevent HIV infections.
But “I don’t think the past is going to be all that relevant,” Altman said. As a presidential candidate, Harris would have to mobilize the base and appeal to undecided voters, he said. “I would expect her to continue the kind of aggressive incrementalism that we’ve seen from the Biden administration.”
One of the first health care fights a Harris administration will face is the extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits, which were originally enacted in 2021 and are now set to expire at the end of 2025, Corlette said. “That’s going to be a really important, critical fight, and I expect her to push for a permanent extension of that, because that’s just had a huge impact on the affordability of health insurance for a lot of people.”
Republicans have proposed Capping and cutting Medicaida “very popular” program that covers nearly 90 million Americans, Altman said. Some conservative Republican groups have also proposed fundamental changes to Medicare, which Altman calls “a politically untouchable program.”
after newsletter promotion
Trump and Vance have proposed weakening protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which are “hugely popular,” Altman said, and making major changes to or even repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Republican groups are now also turning their attention to tax-advantaged health care savings accounts in an effort to make health care more consumer-driven.
“What you would likely see under a Trump administration is a dismantling of the federal government’s involvement in health care,” Corlette said. Yet “one of the biggest pain points for Americans right now is the cost of health care — not just the cost of health insurance, but the cost when they go to the hospital or the doctor,” she said.
On abortion, Trump has proposed leaving the issue up to the states — nearly a third of states have outright bans on abortion.
“That is not a position that is consistent with the majority of the American people,” Donley said. “It is radical.”
Trump’s abortion plank also invokes fetal personhood, which would make abortion, IVF procedures and miscarriages punishable as murder. The concept of fetal personhood, where a zygote, embryo or fetus has the same rights as humans, is “very scary. It’s scary as everyone says, and not just for abortion,” Donley said.
While Biden’s administration has made big strides on abortion, “it’s never been an issue that he’s personally felt comfortable with,” Corlette said. Biden has rarely even say the word “abortion”.
Harris, on the other hand, has been much more outspoken on reproductive rights.
Whoever wins this election could one day nominate new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, if some of the older justices were to leave the court.
“If Harris serves eight years, she has the potential to really change the makeup of the Supreme Court,” Donley said.
“That could be a way to undo Dobbs. And that would obviously have implications that are much bigger than abortion.”