Health Care

Overview

HARRIS: Medicare for All
When launching her 2020 presidential campaign on January 21, 2019, Harris stated: “I am running to declare, once and for all, that health care is a fundamental right, and we will deliver that right with Medicare for All!” In other words, she called for a government-run, single-payer healthcare system.

Single-payer systems have been tried in a number of nations in recent decades. Because such systems are “free,” people tend to overuse their healthcare. Thus, in order to contain costs, government must ration services like diagnostic procedures, rehabilitation services, surgery, etc. Patients invariably face long waiting lists for treatments of all types.
Another hallmark of most single-payer systems is a shortage of doctors – mainly as a result of government controls and capped compensation.
The bureaucracies of single-payer systems hold ultimate authority over the treatments that each patient can get. Britain’s National Health Service, for instance, relies on the recommendations of a quasi-governmental panel that determines which patients should be given precedence for the treatments and medications they need, all of which are in short supply. Because of cost considerations, the panel generally gives preference to young people over older people, and to healthy people over those with chronic disease.
The Cato Institute states that “in countries weighted heavily toward government control, people are most likely to face waiting lists, rationing, restrictions on physician choice, and other obstacles to care.” By contrast: “[T]hose countries with national health care systems that work better, such as France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, are successful to the degree that they incorporate market mechanisms such as competition, cost-consciousness, market prices, and consumer choice, and eschew centralized government control. In other words, socialized medicine works—as long as it isn’t socialized medicine.”

HARRIS: Vows to “Snatch” Medical Patents & Fix the Prices of Medicines
At a 2019 presidential campaign event in Iowa, Harris vowed that in order to forcibly lower the costs of pharmaceuticals, she, as president, would have the government set what it deemed to be a fair market price for each drug, and would punish any pharmaceutical companies that failed to comply with her pricing structure. Specifically, she vowed to “snatch” those companies’ patents for the medicines in question. “I will snatch their patent so that we [the government] will take over,” she declared. When a rally attendee asked, “Can we do that?”, Harris replied: “Yes we can do that! … The question is, do you have the will to do it? I have the will to do it!”

HARRIS & BIDEN: Health Care Coverage for Illegal Aliens
When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Harris in May 2019 whether she supported granting taxpayer-funded benefits “to people who are in this country illegally,” she responded: “Let me just be very clear about this. I am opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education or public health, period.”

That same month, Joe Biden stated that America has “an obligation” to provide federal benefits like Medicare and Medicaid for all people, “regardless of whether they are documented or undocumented.”

WALZ: Government-Run, Single-Payer Healthcare
In November 2006, Rep. Walz voiced his support for a centralized, government-run, universal healthcare system.

Walz believes that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) can serve as a strategic stepping stone toward the eventual implementation of a single-payer healthcare system.

In October 2018, Rep. Walz said, with a spirit of optimism, that a government-run, single-payer-type healthcare system “is on Minnesota’s horizon.”

TRUMP: Supports Free-Market Principles for Healthcare
In October 2017, President Trump signed an executive order allowing Americans to buy health insurance from out-of-state providers. “The time has come to give Americans the freedom to purchase health insurance across state lines, which will create a truly competitive national marketplace that will bring costs way down and provide far better care,” he stated.

TRUMP: Signed “Right-to-Try” Bill for Terminally Ill Patients
In May 2018, President Trump signed “right-to-try” legislation allowing terminally ill patients to access experimental medical treatments not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Said the president: “Thousands of terminally ill Americans will finally have hope, and the fighting chance, and I think it’s going to … be able to be with their families for … a longer time.”

TRUMP: Additional Healthcare Measures
During his time in office, President Trump also:

signed the most comprehensive legislation ever written to advance childhood cancer research and treatments
expanded short-term, limited-duration health plans
cut Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty, which imposed heavy fines on people who failed to purchase health insurance
signed legislation repealing Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board – i.e., “death panels” tasked with deciding which patients should be approved to receive certain treatments & medicines
proposed a Title X rule to help ensure that taxpayers would not be required to fund the abortion industry
reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy to keep foreign aid from supporting the abortion industry in other countries
oversaw the Department of Health & Human Services’ formation of a new division to protect medical providers’ rights of conscience and religious freedom
signed an executive order to help ensure that religious organizations would not be forced to violate their religious beliefs by complying with Obamacare’s contraceptive/abortifacient mandate
signed four executive orderson drug pricing, directing the Secretary of Health & Human Services to take steps to deliver lower costs on prescription drugs

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