Kamala Harris on Healthcare
No shrinking violet...
VP Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for President.
Harris is no newcomer to healthcare; her mother was a medical researcher and Harris has focused on various healthcare issues throughout her 35+ year career.
Here’s where she stands on healthcare issues.
Reproductive freedom
Top of mind is Harris’ leadership on reproductive freedom and abortion rights. Unlike President Biden who is pretty uncomfortable with the topic, Harris has been visible, vocal, and consistent on these issues. From KFF:
“Most significantly, Harris would be the face of the drive to protect abortion rights,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF said in an interview before Biden stepped aside. “Abortion access would likely be front and center in her campaign.”
This plays quite well with the electorate; according to Pew Research almost 2/3rds of adults said “abortion should be legal in all or most cases.” (a third said it should be illegal in all or most cases)
A May Gallup poll found a third “of voters said they would vote only for a candidate for a major office who shares their views on the topic, a view that nearly twice as many voters who support abortion hold, relative to those who do not support it.”
About half of Republican women support a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion.
Expect Harris to attempt to force her opponent to take a public stand on abortion and related issues including IVF and contraception.
Maternal health
From Statnews:
Harris also made addressing maternal mortality in the United States one of her marquee issues as a senator, leading in the Senate on bicameral legislation addressing the issue.
Consolidation
In her six years serving as California Attorney General Harris:
along with 11 other AGs worked to block the Anthem - Cigna merger,
prosecuted Quest Diagnostics and McKesson for Medicaid fraud,
led an effort by a coalition of state Attorneys General to block a merger of a large hospital system and a physician group, and
built the groundwork that her successor in the AG’s office used to successfully sue Sutter Health for anti-competitive practices.
Staffing
As VP Harris was pretty involved in the details of a crackdown on nursing homes for inadequate staffing; she made the official announcement re new rules this April.
Focus
Perhaps most important, Harris has a solid understanding of the healthcare ecosystem and players within that ecosystem. As a former prosecutor, she takes a dim view of what she considers anti-competitive or unfair practices in healthcare and is quite public about her efforts to combat those practices.
She is also outspoken and can be blunt.
What does this mean for you?
As President, Harris would likely be far more involved in healthcare than most, leading to increased focus on consolidation and a concerted effort to ensure adoption of nationwide laws protecting a broad range of reproductive rights.