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What is Kamala Harris’ Stance on Healthcare? · CareTalk: Healthcare. Unfiltered.

• 0:00
  Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, is aligned with President Joe Biden on healthcare policy, but she stands out in her ability and willingness to champion reproductive freedom.
• 0:10
  What else does Harris stand for?
• 0:12
  And how big a factor will healthcare play in this election?
• 0:21
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• 1:00
  Welcome to Care Talk, America's home for incisive debate about healthcare business and policy.
• 1:05
  I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group.
• 1:08
  And I'm John Driscoll, senior advisor at Walgreens.
• 1:11
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• 1:15
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• 1:22
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• 1:26
  David, why are we talking so much about healthcare and Kamala Harris, the new Democratic presidential candidate right now?
• 1:36
  Well, because I think that Joe Biden was unable to really speak up in a forceful manner on the key issues of the day in healthcare.
• 1:44
  and Kamala Harris is very much able to do so.
• 1:47
  Her positions aren't that different than Joe Biden on policy.
• 1:50
  Maybe she's slightly more progressive.
• 1:52
  But the important thing is she can clearly, confidently, and consistently articulate her views on reproductive freedom, including saying the word abortion and talking about birth control and IVF.
• 2:02
  That's why we're discussing it, John.
• 2:04
  Yeah, I think the most interesting thing about Kamala Harris as a candidate, and she's something of an accident of the moment where someone who the president really trusted and chose as his partner and inevitably the vice president gets the worst jobs during a presidential run because as president you want to hand that off.
• 2:30
  She, though throughout her career as a prosecutor and as a senator and as vice president has really embraced this issue of reproductive freedom.
• 2:41
  She actually did I think a reproductive freedom and it turns out that's probably the greatest wedge issue.
• 2:50
  It's obviously something she feels very strongly about, but it's the greatest wedge issue that could bring independents and Republicans to the Democratic side.
• 2:58
  Well, we know that the overturning of Roe versus Wade is sort of the, you know, the dog catching up with the car and having to bite the tire.
• 3:05
  And it's, it's hurt the Republicans in the near term from an electoral standpoint.
• 3:10
  And Kamala Harris is the perfect person to push that and widen that wedge.
• 3:15
  It's a very ironic twist of fate that the very party that has really championed freedom in some cases accurately and in some cases as a way to push back against government, liberal progressive and sometimes even regulatory policies now found itself on the other side of that argument for a government, particularly a Supreme Court.
• 3:41
  that appears to be willing to take back the freedoms that many, Americans agree with.
• 3:47
  I think that you'll find that even in the Republican party, north of 60 % of the Republicans agree that keeping free and safe access to IVF is important and certainly support access to abortion with some limits.
• 4:08
  mean, the radical positions of the Republican Party have turned it into the government, the party of government overreach at a time when, you know, reproductive freedom couldn't be more on the minds of American voters.
• 4:21
  A lot of our freedoms are somewhat abstract.
• 4:24
  You know, the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, we kind of take them for granted.
• 4:29
  And you don't see any sort of a radical change, even if sometimes people feel, well, the climate is, you know, makes it harder to say certain things, for example.
• 4:37
  But when we talk about reproductive freedom, it has had a real meaning and people have seen a real change in their own lives and those of their sisters, wives, girlfriends over the past timeframe since the Dobbs decision was announced and Roe versus Wade was overturned.
• 4:54
  So characterizing it as freedom is not just a campaign slogan, that is definitely gonna resonate.
• 5:01
  Well, I think this is a deeply personal issue for women.
• 5:04
  was talking to one of the leading Democratic pollsters who was doing focus groups, and focus groups are typically groups of six to 15 people to have really deep individual conversations around issues to kind of understand not just what the numbers say, but the texture, the feelings, the positions, like how people actually feel.
• 5:28
  And what they found is 60 to 80 % of the women in the focus groups, which are typically 50 -50, had personal experiences of needing access to safe, whether it's contraception or healthcare after a miscarriage or knowing someone who'd been raped or been the victim of sexual violence and needed think about terminating a pregnancy.
• 5:57
  This is deeply personal and it crosses class as well as political lines.
• 6:03
  So much so that in those deep conversations, they actually had to provide psychological support to the people, the women who were helping run these focus groups.
• 6:12
  This area of reproductive freedom is personal and where it affects people is it really can motivate around something that's an issue that, again, does not pay any attention to class or politics.
• 6:33
  Okay, so we've been talking a lot about reproductive freedom here.
• 6:35
  It's certainly a signature issue for Kamala Harris.
• 6:38
  Is this the only health care issue that matters in this election?
• 6:42
  Well, no.
• 6:42
  think that she does have a track record.
• 6:47
  As attorney general, she opposed some of the mergers of health insurance companies.
• 6:53
  They may not have gone through, but that's an indicator while she's expressed an openness to think about the restrictive antitrust policy of the Biden administration historically.
• 7:02
  She does have a track record of opposing the mega mergers.
• 7:07
  And she also has taken a leadership position on something we've talked about on this podcast, the momnibus agenda.
• 7:15
  of the Democrats.
• 7:16
  you want to maybe, maybe David, maybe we could remind our viewers and listeners about what that momnibus bill entailed and why it's so critical right now in the United States.
• 7:26
  in the U S maternal and fetal mortality are very high compared to other rich countries around the world.
• 7:33
  And in fact, if you look at them in particular, among black women, and their babies, it's actually as high as it is in some really third world countries.
• 7:44
  It's not just actually even based on income, but even based on race.
• 7:50
  Well off black mothers actually have a bad track record, bad health outcomes.
• 7:55
  so Kamala Harris was the lead sponsor in the Senate of this black maternal health, Mamnibus Act that attempted to do something about it and really put an issue at the forefront of politics in this country.
• 8:10
  Yeah, I mean, just to put not to put a fine point on it, I think in the top 20 OECD countries, the developed countries with developed health care systems, I think we rank last and we are falling versus rising around maternal and child health.
• 8:23
  Secondly, the momnibus bill, which focuses on maternal and child health, know, that particularly what happens to you after you deliver a baby to the mother and the child.
• 8:37
  This is something that is actually falling not just among people of color, but our success is actually eroding among our entire society.
• 8:46
  We have a broken system around birth right now in the United States.
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  And while in the inner city, and again, it's somewhat colorblind, our health statistics are no better than the third world.
• 8:58
  Our first world statistics in developed parts of the country aren't that much better.
• 9:02
  While there's definitely discrimination that ties to color, effectively the healthcare system is failing young mothers and young babies.
• 9:10
  And I think that one of the exciting things about Kamala Harris is she's identified that issue and embraced it.
• 9:16
  Yeah, she knows how to prosecute her ideas and her opponents as well.
• 9:19
  think Jeff Sessions is famously afraid of her and said so.
• 9:23
  When Brett Kavanaugh was before the Senate for his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, now there was a lot of focus on people saying, you will you overturn Roe versus Wade?
• 9:32
  It wouldn't budge on that, not surprisingly.
• 9:35
  But she had a smart question, which she said, if he could think of any laws that regulated men's bodies.
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  And he says, I'm not thinking of any.
• 9:44
  So she made a good point there, got her point across.
• 9:48
  And I think that some of these laws that regulate women's bodies actually lead to some of these issues with certainly maternal health and arguably fetal health as well.
• 9:57
  And so it all kind of goes Well, I think the other area where I think you're going to see her lean in as president, if she's lucky enough, fortunate enough to win the presidency, is on this, on the discriminatory aspects of the health care system.
• 10:12
  mean, just like maternal and child health.
• 10:15
  I mean, just to be clear, there is no structural reason why American health care should be failing mothers and babies and we should be deteriorating.
• 10:25
  In fact, there's states like New Jersey, where the first lady, Tammy Murphy, embraced the issue and immediately took those statistics for the state of New Jersey and increased it five or six slots or maybe even 10 relative to the nation because New Jersey was failing.
• 10:44
  These are problems that are fixable.
• 10:47
  Another problem that's fixable are the very visible costs of discrimination in the healthcare system where folks of color whether holding even income the same or having worse outcomes because we aren't doing a great job at taking care of people in a colorblind fashion.
• 11:11
  I think there's a lot of very clear gaps that Kamala Harris as Senator and Vice President has identified and would prioritize and take action around.
• 11:21
  And these are solvable problems, David.
• 11:23
  Other developed countries have solved them, and we can too.
• 11:27
  John, let's talk about some of the other issues, and let's talk about drug pricing.
• 11:31
  So that's something that we have discussed a lot on this show.
• 11:36
  And there has been action during the Biden -Harris administration with the Inflation Reduction Act, which is having a negotiation of drugs with Medicare for the first time.
• 11:46
  Where does Kamala Harris stand on drug pricing?
• 11:48
  Well, I think, interestingly, she actually has expressed some interest in agreeing with Trump.
• 11:55
  around capping the prices and looking at the reference pricing that would tie the federal reimbursements to more of a global price versus whatever is negotiated or frankly, today not negotiated, is just demanded on the part of big pharma.
• 12:18
  So I think you'll find that you will continue and extend drug negotiations that's in Medicare today.
• 12:25
  And I think I would not be surprised to see a revival of those reference price proposals, which are simply suggesting that the United States shouldn't be paying a lot anymore than some of the other developed countries are negotiating for the same drugs, but at a better price.
• 12:43
  That's right, John.
• 12:43
  And so she's similar to Biden.
• 12:46
  It certainly supports the drug negotiation for Medicare that's in the Inflation Reduction And she's also expressed an interest in enforcing those rates for commercial plans as well, so that others would get the benefit of it and not just limited to the federal program.
• 12:59
  So I say she goes a little bit further even than Biden on that.
• 13:03
  You mentioned on antitrust, which has become an issue as the healthcare markets have gotten to be quite consolidated.
• 13:08
  She does have a long standing history of at least taking a stand and if not outright blocking those mergers, at least slowing them down so the questions can be asked and answered.
• 13:19
  Well, I think that while she's expressed, again, some willingness to open a conversation about the Biden administration's general dislike of mergers and commercial aggregations, she's been very clear that in health care, consolidation can be a problem.
• 13:37
  certainly, of the research, most of the research that I've seen around hospital mergers indicates that while they claim to be cost reducing, they generally tend to be cost increasing.
• 13:48
  And there's a real question as to whether all of this consolidation doesn't just lock us into higher prices, whether you're talking about ambulatory surgery centers or insurance companies or hospitals.
• 14:00
  Certainly we have not made great progress at reducing healthcare inflation.
• 14:04
  And we, again, we have the most expensive costs in general, you the industrialized world without the best outcomes.
• 14:10
  Now on the GOP side, the nominee for vice president, JD Vance had written a book, Hillbilly Elegy talked public health in a certain sense.
• 14:21
  And he's talked about marginalized rural communities in particular.
• 14:25
  Does Kamala Harris have an answer for that?
• 14:28
  Is she giving any emphasis to those sort of issues?
• 14:31
  Well, I think that the issue of rural health and the continuing erosion of infrastructure in rural health care with rural hospitals, hospitals closing and a disproportionate number of rural hospitals closing, but also pharmacies closing and doctors having a hard time making a go of it.
• 14:52
  I don't think anyone's really come up with a policy that would really address truly the increasing needs of the decreasing access in rural communities.
• 15:04
  Some of the things that she has supported that have been, I think, helpful or at least aimed at those communities is telehealth, so people don't have to go such a long distance to see a physician.
• 15:15
  That's something that helps rural communities a lot.
• 15:17
  She's been supportive of reimbursement there, community health centers as well.
• 15:22
  And then mental health parity.
• 15:23
  mean, that is one of the things that JD Vance had pointed to in Hillbilly, elegy a lot of people with opioids addictions and having access to mental health services is important to the mental health parity is a way to do it.
• 15:36
  Well, I think that's absolutely right, Dave, but I mean, it's really hard to square JD Vance's, I think, genuine concern for providing support to those who are suffering from opioid addiction, which is a real plague in a lot of these rural communities with, know, shrinking and not supporting a public health system that really needs to expand, not contract in these areas.
• 15:59
  And while I think you're right that Kamala and others have supported things like telehealth and mental health parity, if we don't have infrastructure, we're not going to have access to services.
• 16:10
  And that's the tricky part.
• 16:11
  I think we're going to have to, if we're going to actually care for aging beaten up communities in either old industrialized areas where there's lack of access or rural areas.
• 16:24
  I think we're gonna have to come up with a new model which where we actually support at a level that we haven't seen things like community health centers, which again typically are more oriented towards urban areas where there's more population.
• 16:42
  Unfortunately, the math around supporting healthcare infrastructure in communities where population is going down will not support it commercially.
• 16:52
  So it's going to require federal, I think, intervention to really prop up those communities and get them the care they need.
• 16:57
  The candidates have evolved a fair amount on healthcare policy.
• 17:01
  I know that President Trump once was in a book praising the Canadian healthcare system, which is a socialist system.
• 17:07
  And G .D.
• 17:08
  Vance has been praised for his so -called flexibility and adaptability, meaning his ability to do a reversal or flip -flop.
• 17:17
  The way I see Kamala Harris in terms of her evolution is during the 2020 presidential primary, the Democratic side, there was a big emphasis on Medicare for all.
• 17:26
  And actually all the candidates were running to the left of Joe Biden on that who supported obviously, know, Obamacare or Obamacare slash Bidencare as he might refer to it.
• 17:37
  And you had Elizabeth Warren and Senator Sanders that focusing very much on a kind of single payer and definitely Medicare for all.
• 17:45
  And she sort of staked out a lane in between there where, she was generally for an expansion of Medicare, but still having private insurers.
• 17:54
  Has she evolved on that or how would you compare her evolution there maybe compared with others?
• 17:59
  I think, you know, it's really interesting that whenever anyone gets elevated to the next level, people are shocked that they sometimes adjust some of their positions.
• 18:07
  But no one has been more extreme democratic slash pro supporting socialist stuff.
• 18:14
  Trump to now anti -government, anti -establishment Trump who actually came from the establishment.
• 18:22
  mean, just to give you a sense of how extreme that changes while he continues to complain about Kamala.
• 18:27
  He actually, I believe contributed to her reelection campaign in, in, 2011.
• 18:36
  So I, I think that the, the, the vice president is very aware that she needs to represent all of America and is looking for positions where she can build a coalition to create a fair, more equitable and an America that actually delivers a better healthcare outcomes for more of its citizens.
• 18:54
  So I'd expect you're going to see some evolution.
• 18:56
  And I think a lot of that's going to be building on the coalition that Biden built by playing to the middle and the left.
• 19:04
  we've discussed Kamala Harris's stances on healthcare, that emphasis on reproductive freedom.
• 19:09
  Do you think her health care stances are gonna have an impact on this election?
• 19:13
  David, without a question.
• 19:15
  mean, by happenstance of history, opportunity, and all her hard work on the issue, I think this issue of reproductive freedom is a defining one.
• 19:25
  And whenever it's been on the ballot, even in red states, it's won.
• 19:29
  And I think you're gonna see independents, Republicans, as well as Democrats be motivated to get to the polls to vote for Democrats.
• 19:37
  And I think it's one It's one of these rare occasions when a one issue can really might help decide the election.
• 19:45
  What say you?
• 19:46
  I was just going to say you heard it here first because, yeah, I would agree.
• 19:50
  It seems fairly likely.
• 19:52
  You know, there's a discussion about how the polls have moved just very slightly.
• 19:56
  My sense without doing any, you know, I don't have my own pollsters and so on is the turnout is going to be critical and that you have people that are a lot more.
• 20:04
  There are people that care about this topic of reproductive freedom.
• 20:07
  were motivated to turn out for the election.
• 20:09
  And that could make a lot of difference beyond what you're seeing in the polls.
• 20:13
  Sometimes Trump had been underestimated in the polls.
• 20:16
  I think perhaps the impact of turnout on likely voters, somebody becomes a more likely voter here.
• 20:22
  So I think it could be decisive.
• 20:25
  Well, that's it for yet another episode of Care Talk.
• 20:27
  We've been speaking about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her views on healthcare and particularly reproductive freedom.
• 20:35
  I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group.
• 20:37
  And I'm John Driscoll, Senior Advisor at Walgreens.
• 20:39
  If you liked what you heard or you didn't, we'd love you to subscribe on your favorite service.