Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has positioned herself as a strong advocate for female reproductive rights and progressive policies.
As she seeks to distinguish herself from the former president, does her stance on broader healthcare issues change as well?
In this episode of CareTalk, David E. Williams and John Driscoll explore presidential hopeful Kamala Harris' views and potential future policies on everything from reproductive freedom to drug pricing and access to care.
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Episode Transcript:
David E. Williams: Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is aligned with President Joe Biden on health care policy, but she stands out in her ability and willingness to champion reproductive freedom. What else does Harris stand for, and how big a factor will healthcare play in this election?
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John Driscoll: David, why are we talking so much about healthcare and Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential, new Democratic presidential candidate right
David E. Williams: now? 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, and Kamala Harris is very much able to do so.
Her positions aren't that different than Joe Biden on policy, maybe she's slightly more progressive, 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. That's why we're discussing it, John.
John Driscoll: Yeah, I, I think the most interesting thing about Kamala Harris, as a candidate. And she's something of a, of a, of an accident of the moment where someone who the president really trusted and chose as his partner. And inevitably the vice president, you know, gets the worst jobs during a presidential run because as president, you want to hand that off.
She, Though throughout her career, as a prosecutor and as a senator, and as vice president, has really embraced this issue of reproductive freedom. She actually did a, I think, a reproductive freedom tour, and it turns out that's probably the greatest wedge issue. 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.
David E. Williams: 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, and it's it's hurt the Republicans in the near term from an electoral standpoint. And Kamala Harris is the perfect person to really push that and widen that wedge.
John Driscoll: It's, it's a very ironic twist of fate that the very party that has really championed freedom in, in some cases accurately, and in some cases as a way to push back against government, liberal, progressive, and sometimes even regulatory policies, now founds itself on the other side of that argument for a government particularly a Supreme Court.
That appears to be willing to take back the freedoms that many, most Americans agree with.
I think that you'll find that even in the Republican Party, north of 60 percent of the Republicans agree that keeping free and safe access to IVF is important and certainly support access to, abortion with some limits, I mean, the radical positions of the, 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.
David E. Williams: A lot of our freedoms are somewhat abstract, you know, the right to free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. We kind of take them for granted 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, 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 time frame since the Dobbs decision was announced and Roe versus Wade was overturned. So characterizing it as freedom is not just a campaign slogan. That is definitely going to resonate with people.
John Driscoll: I think this is a deeply personal issue for, for women.
I was talking to one of the leading democratic pollsters who is doing focus groups and focus groups are typically groups of, you know, 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, how people actually feel and what they found is that 60 to 80 percent 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 health care after a miscarriage or knowing someone who'd been in, in raped or been the victim of, of, of sexual violence and, and, and, and, and, and, and needed to think about terminating a, a pregnancy. This is deeply personal and it crosses class. As well as political lines, 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.
These are the, the, the, the, the, this, this area of reproductive freedom is, is, is personal and where it affects people. Is, is, it really can motivate them around something that's an issue that, that again, does not, does not, does not pay any attention to, to class or politics.
David E. Williams: Okay. So we've been talking a lot about reproductive freedom here.
It's certainly a signature issue for Kamala Harris. Is this the only healthcare issue that matters in this election?
John Driscoll: Well, no, I think that she has you know, that she does have a track record. She, as a, as a, as attorney general, she opposed some of the big mergers of health insurance companies. 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, she does have a track record of opposing the mega-mergers, and she also has, taken a leadership position on something we've talked about on this podcast, the mom to this agenda of the Democrats.
Do you want to maybe, maybe David, maybe we could remind our, our viewers and listeners about what that mom to this bill entailed and why it's so critical right now in the United States?
David E. Williams: Well, in the U S a maternal and fetal mortality are very high. Compared to other rich countries around the world. 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, and it's not just actually even based on income.
But even based on race, well-off black mothers actually have a bad track record, bad health outcomes. And so Kamala Harris was the lead sponsor in the Senate of this Black Maternal Health Mominevus Act that attempted to do something about it and really put an issue at the forefront of politics in this country.
John Driscoll: 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. Secondly the, the, the, the Momnibus bill, which focuses on maternal and child health, you know, that, that particularly are, are, are, are, are what happens to you after you.
Deliver a baby to the mother and the child. This is something that is actually falling, not just among people of color, but our, our, success is, actually eroding among our entire city. We have a broken system around birth right now in the United States. And while in the. inner city. And again, it's, it's, it's somewhat colorblind.
Our health statistics are no, are no better than the third world. Our first-world statistics in developed parts of the country aren't that much better. While there's definitely discrimination that ties to color, effectively, the healthcare system is failing young mothers and young babies. And I think that one of the exciting things about Kamala Harris is she's identified that issue and embraced it.
David E. Williams: You know, she knows how to prosecute her ideas and her opponents as well. I think Jeff Sessions is famously afraid of her and said, so when Brett Kavanaugh was before the Senate for his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, you know, there was a lot of focus on people saying, you know, will you overturn Roe versus Wade?
It wouldn't, Budge on that and not surprisingly, but she had a smart question. What she said, if, if he could think of any laws that regulated men's bodies and he says, I'm not thinking of any, you know, so she made a good point there, got her point across. 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.
And so it all kind of goes together.
John Driscoll: 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 healthcare system. I mean, just like maternal and child health, I mean, just to be clear, there is no structural reason why American healthcare should be failing.
Mothers and babies and we, we should be deteriorating. In fact, there's states like New Jersey where the first lady Tammy Murphy embraced the issue and immediately took, that 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.
You can, these are, these are, these are problems that are fixable. Another problem that's fixable, fixable. Is the very, are the very visible costs of discrimination in the health care system, where folks of color, whether holding even income the same are, are having worse outcomes because we aren't doing a great job at taking care of people in a colorblind fashion.
I think there's a lot of very clear gaps that, that Kamala Harris as senator and vice president has identified. And would prioritize and take action around because and these are solvable problems, David, you know, other developed countries have solved them and we can to John. Let's talk
David E. Williams: about some of the other issues and let's talk about drug pricing.
So that's that's something that we have discussed a lot. On the show. And there has been action during the Biden-Harris administration with the Inflation Reduction Act, which is having a negotiation of drugs and Medicare for the, for the first time. Where does Kamala Harris stand on drug pricing?
John Driscoll: Well, I think interestingly, she actually has expressed some interest in agreeing with Trump around the capping the prices and looking at. The reference pricing that would, that would sort of tie our, the, the, the commercially federal reimbursements to more of a global price versus whatever is negotiated or frankly, frankly today not negotiated is just demanded on the part, on the part of big pharma.
So I think you'll find that she will continue and extend the drug negotiations that's in Medicare today. And I think, 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.
David E. Williams: That's right, John. And so she's similar to Biden. It certainly supports the drug negotiation for Medicare. That's in the Inflation Reduction Act. 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. So I say she goes a little bit further even than Biden on that. You mentioned on antitrust, which has become an issue as the healthcare markets have gotten to be quite consolidated. 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.
John Driscoll: Well, I think that the, while she's expressed again, some willingness to, 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. And, and, you know, certainly all 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.
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. nor hospitals. Certainly, we have not made great progress at reducing healthcare inflation. And we, again, we have the most expensive costs in general, you know, the industrialized world without the best outcomes.
David E. Williams: Now, on the GOP side the nominee for vice president, J. D. Vance had written a book, Hillbillyology, talked about public health in a, in a certain sense. And he's talked about marginalized rural communities in particular. Does Kamala Harris have an answer for that? Is she given any emphasis?
John Driscoll: Well, I think, I think that the, the issue of rural health and the continuing erosion of infrastructure in rural healthcare 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. I don't, 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.
David E. Williams: Some of the things that she has supported that have been, I think, helpful, or at least aimed at, at those communities is telehealth.
So people don't have to go such a long distance to see a physician. That's something that helps rural communities a lot. She's been supportive of reimbursement there. Community health centers as well. And then mental health parity. I mean, that is one of the things that J. D. Vance had pointed to in Hillbilly Elegy.
A lot of people with opioid addictions and having access to mental health services is important and the mental health parity is a way to do it.
John Driscoll: Well, I think that's absolutely right, Dave. But I mean, it's really hard to square J. D. 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, you know, shrinking and not supporting a public health system that really needs to expand, not contract in these areas. 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.
And that's the tricky part. I think we're going to have to, if we're going to actually care for these aging, beaten up communities in, in, in either old industrialized areas where there's been lack of access or rural areas, I think we're going to come up, 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, you know, again, typically are more oriented towards urban areas where there's, there's more population. Unfortunately, the math around supporting healthcare infrastructure in communities where the population is going down will not support it commercially.
So it's going to require federal, I think, intervention to really prop up those communities and get them the care they need.
David E. Williams: The candidates have evolved a fair amount on health care policy. I know that President Trump once was in a book praising the Canadian health care system, which is a socialist system, and GD Vance has been praised for his so-called flexibility and adaptability, meaning his ability to do reversals or flip flop.
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. And actually all the candidates were running to the left of Joe Biden on that, who supported obviously, you know, Obamacare or Obamacare slash Biden care, as he might refer to it.
And you had Elizabeth Warren and Senator Sanders that were you know, focusing very much on a kind of single-payer and definitely Medicare for all. And she sort of staked out a lane In between there where yeah, she was generally for an expansion of Medicare but still having private insurers Has she evolved on that or how would you compare her evolution there?
Maybe compare I
John Driscoll: 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, but no one has been more extreme Then democratic slash supporting socialist stuff. Trump to now anti-government anti-establishment Trump, who actually came from the establishment.
I mean, just give you a sense of how extreme that changes while he continues to complain about Kamala. He actually, I believe contributed to her reelection campaign in, in 2011. And 11. So I, I, I think that the, the, the. That the vice president is now very aware that she needs to represent all of America and is looking for positions where she can build a coalition to, to create a fair, more equitable and an America that actually delivers for a better healthcare outcomes for more of its citizens.
So I would expect you're going to see some evolution. 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.
David E. Williams: So we've discussed Kamala Harris's stances on healthcare, that emphasis on reproductive freedom. Do you think her healthcare stances are going to have an impact on this election?
John Driscoll: Oh, David, without a question. I 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. And whenever it's been on the ballot, even in red states, it's one. And I think you're going to see independence Republicans as well as Democrats be motivated to get to the polls to vote for Democrats.
And I think it's one of, it's a, it's, it's one of these rare occasions when a one issue can really might help decide the election. What, what, what, what say you,
David E. Williams: John, I was just going to say, you heard it here first, because yeah, I would, I would agree. It seems fairly likely. You know, there's a discussion about how the polls have moved just very slightly.
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. There are people that care about this topic of reproductive freedom were motivated to turn out for the election, and that could make a lot of difference beyond seeing in the polls.
Sometimes Trump had been underestimated in the polls. I think perhaps the impact of turnout on, you know, likely voters, somebody becomes a more likely voter here. So I think it could be. Yeah. Decisive. Well, that's it for yet another episode of Care Talk. We've been speaking about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her views on healthcare and particularly reproductive freedom.
I'm David Williams, president of Health Business Group.
John Driscoll: And I'm John Driscoll, senior advisor at Walgreens. If you liked what you heard or you didn't, we'd love you to subscribe on your favorite service.
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