Right here’s Where Kamala Harris Stands on 6 Mandatory Well being Points

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Since turning into the Democratic presidential nominee within the wake of President Joe Biden stepping down this summer season, vp Kamala Harris has had to craft her enjoy marketing campaign in an extremely-abbreviated timeline, leaving her with few opportunities to allotment how she’d lead the nation if elected. That adjustments in a extensive procedure tonight, September 10, when she’ll debate frail president and novel Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

It’ll be a high opportunity for Harris to clarify her stance on touchstone components, including several wanted ones that revolve round well being and well being care. Indeed, virtually 60% of Americans peek well being care fees as a “very extensive topic,” and a file-excessive 32% of US voters are handiest willing to vote for a candidate who aligns with their views on abortion.

While Harris is poke to paint a contemporary image of her well being-connected proposals, there’s minute mystery about the place she stands. On September 9, she launched her top-line viewpoints on a range of policy components in a scheme referred to as A New Technique Forward. Plus, she’s been within the political game for some time, taking half in a key feature within the passage of well being-impacting prison pointers and talking publicly about well being components at some level of her 3.5 years as vp (and before that, as a US senator, the lawyer general of California, and the district lawyer of San Francisco). Attend discovering out to brush up on what Harris has performed or dedicated to in six wanted areas of well being policy.

Learn the place Donald Trump stands on these well being components right here.

Well being care fees

That you can additionally own heard some chatter about Harris flip-flopping on who ought to pay for well being care (the authorities, à la in fashion well being care, or a fluctuate of entities, including non-public insurance firms). And her imaginative and prescient has certainly morphed over the years: In 2017, as a US senator for California, Harris cosponsored Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All scheme—a proposal for authorities-backed well being care—and in 2019, when she first campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination, she changed into as soon as with out a doubt one of two candidates who raised their fingers at some level of a predominant debate to signal that she’d acquire rid of non-public well being insurance. The waffle? She backtracked rapidly after and launched a proposal that can maybe maybe slowly expand Medicare while peaceable allowing non-public insurers to present plans, as lengthy as they abided by particular guidelines.

As for what her well being care scheme is now? It’s peaceable a bit vague, however we know that decreasing fees will be a key portion of it. In her New Technique Forward, she’s dedicated to strengthening the Cheap Care Act and lengthening the improved Biden-generation tax credit that own substantially diminished well being care premiums. Exact final month, the Biden-Harris administration additionally announced lower costs for 10 widespread, costly treatment (some of which treat conditions admire coronary heart illness and most cancers) for other folks covered by Medicare, as a result of a 2022 law granting Medicare the vitality to negotiate drug costs; that identical guidelines, the Inflation Slit price Act, additionally capped the price of insulin at $35 a month and out-of-pocket fees for prescription treatment at $2,000 a year for seniors. And in laying out her economic scheme at some level of her first policy speech as the Democratic presidential nominee in August, Harris pledged to “continue this growth” by locking in identical fee cuts for “everybody…no longer handiest our seniors.” (She has reiterated this promise in her policy scheme, including that she’ll additionally like a flash-tune place negotiations for additional treatment.)

In the identical speech, Harris additionally acknowledged she would “inquire of transparency from the middlemen who feature between Huge Pharma and the insurance firms, who consume opaque practices to boost your drug costs and earnings off your need for treatment.” And there’s no reason to mediate she’d afraid a ways from a battle: As lawyer general of California, Harris investigated several drugmakers for unlawful marketing and inflated pricing, within the waste winning tens of hundreds of hundreds of greenbacks in settlements. And she or he joined forces with other attorneys general to block the merger of extensive well being insurance firms Anthem and Cigna, which, as she referenced in a 2023 speech, “might maybe maybe maybe’ve resulted in increased fee for his or her patients.”

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Scientific debt

Per her stance on dropping well being care fees, Harris is angry by erasing clinical debt (a burden affecting a number of third of Americans) and taking out its a ways-reaching impacts, which, for every other folks, might maybe maybe maybe additionally contain worse mental well being and selecting to place off or steer clear of getting savor clinical components. At some level of her tenure as VP, she’s shepherded initiatives to lend a hand limit “predatory” (read: harassing) debt sequence practices and ramp up tutorial resources that aid other folks in navigating confusing clinical bills. And she or he’s additionally backed efforts to outright forgive clinical debt with funds from the American Rescue Thought—which is heading within the correct direction to alleviate $7 billion of that debt for 3 million of us by 2026.

Nevertheless maybe Harris’s strongest advocacy on this area is her June proposal to prohibit this debt from being integrated in credit reviews. As she acknowledged in a press call tied to the announcement, “Scientific debt makes it extra delicate for hundreds of hundreds of Americans to be well-liked for a vehicle loan, a home loan, or a puny-replace loan, all of which, in turn, makes it extra delicate to correct acquire by, mighty much less acquire ahead.” And as Harris famed within the identical press call, all of this fallout is entirely unfair, provided that you just usually can’t await a costly clinical emergency (and so might maybe maybe maybe somehow halt up indebted even whenever you happen to are financially responsible). Essentially, a Particular person Monetary Protection Bureau analysis stumbled on that having clinical debt is no longer a factual indicator of whether or no longer you might maybe maybe maybe or obtained’t repay a loan.

The contemporary proposal would construct on voluntary actions that three extensive credit agencies own taken in contemporary years to nix clinical debt that is no longer as a lot as a year feeble, has been paid off, or is below $500 from reporting. Nevertheless ideally, as Harris would own it, all clinical debt would be excluded from credit reviews because “nobody desires to be denied economic opportunity as a result of a clinical emergency.”

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Reproductive rights

There’s no well being topic on which Harris’s stance is clearer than on reproductive freedom. Her rob? We ought to all very mighty own it. Which procedure, she’s professional of us doing whatever they damn well please with their bodies, whether or no longer which procedure having an abortion, taking contraception or emergency contraception, or getting fertility remedies. With regards to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), in inform, Harris has referred to as the ethical obstacles precipitated by an Alabama Supreme Court ruling this year “despicable,” and she emphasised the price in having the freedom to launch a family when and the procedure you own out.

Throughout a couple of as a lot as date appearances, Harris additionally criticized the Dobbs ruling that overturned the constitutional ethical to abortion and bemoaned the aftermath of tattered entry to that care, while declaring that she’ll “battle for a girl’s ethical to elevate.” This spring, Harris grew to changed into the principle vp to publicly discuss to an abortion provider—a Deliberate Parenthood in Minnesota, with her now running mate Tim Walz, one other champion for reproductive justice. And in her policy scheme, she has explicitly promised to “by no procedure allow a nationwide abortion ban to changed into law.” No wonder several reproductive-rights orgs (admire Reproductive Freedom for All and Emily’s List) own in fact helpful her marketing campaign.

This month, Harris kicked off a nationwide 50-halt “reproductive freedom bus tour” in Florida. With speeches from Harris and Walz, moreover as Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff, Walz’s wife Gwen, and reproductive rights advocates, the tour objectives to specialise in Harris’s procedure of restoring Roe v. Wade’s protections while painting a determined distinction between her imaginative and prescient to elongate bodily autonomy and the Trump Administration’s historical past of limiting it.

And she or he’s no longer correct talking the debate; Harris’s stance rests on a legacy of motion. As a senator, she cosponsored the Ladies’s Well being Protection Act, which would ban states from creating requirements that invent abortion care more challenging to entry. Earlier than that, as California’s lawyer general, she prosecuted an anti-abortion activist who allegedly illegally recorded conversations at a Deliberate Parenthood, and she additionally backed a bill that sought to manipulate disaster being pregnant centers (which are known to persuade of us no longer to acquire abortions per medically wrong counseling).

As Harris has shared, her motivation is deeply deepest: In excessive school, she learned that her handiest buddy changed into as soon as being molested. “So the thought that someone who survives against the law of violence to their body should not own the authority to invent a decision about what occurs to their body subsequent, that’s perilous,” she told a crowd in Jacksonville, Florida, in Might well well also.

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Gun violence

Ensuring “the freedom to stay safe from the dismay of gun violence,” as Harris keep it at her first marketing campaign tournament this year, is a basic precedence for her. Arguably amongst her most spectacular accomplishments as VP is working with President Biden in 2022 to pass the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which, amongst a ton of efforts to diminish the constant menace of gun violence, strengthened background-evaluation requirements, made straw shopping (shopping a gun for someone who legally can’t) against the law, sought to rob guns from the fingers of of us that’d dedicated home violence, and equipped tens of hundreds of hundreds in grant funding to ramp up school security.

And when Biden created the White Dwelling Space of job of Gun Violence Prevention rapidly after, he chose Harris to oversee it. Since then, she’s labored intently with Biden to place aspects of the BSCA into practice, admire collaborating with the Department of Justice to clarify when a particular person has to acquire a license to sell guns and conduct background tests. And this year, at some level of a discuss to to Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College (the positioning of the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting in 2018), Harris announced the launch of a federal resource middle to lend a hand with the implementation of Low Possibility or “red flag” prison pointers (which enable a mediate to temporarily recall a gun from a one who might maybe maybe maybe additionally be a menace to themselves or others).

Nevertheless that’s correct the contemporary stuff. Earlier than her VP days, Harris cosponsored guidelines as a senator to lend a hand survivors of gun violence acquire fortify, withhold an eye on perilous firearm accessories (admire of us that invent it more straightforward to fireside extra rounds extra like a flash), and prohibit of us convicted of violent abominate crimes from possessing guns. It’s a file that’s handily earned her the endorsement of a coalition of gun-security groups.

What her stance is no longer, nevertheless, is explicitly anti-gun; the truth is, admire Walz (who has shared that he’s a hunter), Harris for my portion owns a gun—reportedly, a handgun “for deepest security” that she keeps locked up. What she stands for, as an different, are solutions that withhold guns “out of the fingers of of us in disaster.” In that realm, she acknowledged in a marketing campaign speech that she’ll pass in fashion background tests, “red flag” prison pointers, and an assault weapons ban if elected.

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COVID-19

You nearly with out a doubt haven’t heard mighty within the procedure of COVID-connected policy or politicking no longer too lengthy within the past… and that’s on cause. Most modern public-curiosity polling presentations the majority (virtually 80%) of Americans aren’t very or at all shy about getting COVID—and when the collective consciousness shifts a ways from a teach, usually so halt politicians. Even reviews of infections “running rampant” at both the Republican and Democratic Nationwide Conventions didn’t garner legit marketing campaign responses. And Harris didn’t so mighty as mention the pandemic in her DNC address on August 22 or in her New Technique Forward policy scheme.

The actuality, nevertheless, is that COVID is mighty from gone; conditions own been spiking extensive-time this summer season amid the appears of as a lot as date variants, and contracting the virus has left hundreds of hundreds with debilitating signs of lengthy COVID and at increased risk of mental well being complications; meanwhile, immunocompromised other folks keep no longer need any decision however to risk their lives—and even face criticism or straight-up abominate for wearing a disguise in public—or protect remoted absent any closing public well being policy.

Despite the novel silence, COVID is a teach Harris has taken steps to accommodate as VP: As well to to collaborating with Biden on a seven-level scheme to fight the virus in 2021 (which integrated offering entry to free attempting out, ramping up manufacturing of face masks and other deepest protective tools, investing $25 billion in a vaccine manufacturing and distribution scheme, and restoring the connection Trump squashed with the World Well being Organization), Harris has spoken at a couple of world COVID-19 summits. In 2021, she advocated for the appearance of an world pandemic preparedness fund and announced that the US changed into as soon as willing to make a contribution $250 million to kick it off. And the next year, she encouraged world cooperation to be particular everybody has “entry to existence-saving vaccines, tests, and therapeutics.”

Additionally price noting: The Biden-Harris administration has launched a response to lengthy COVID, particularly funneling resources in direction of be taught, moreover as expanding savor other folks with the condition and training for clinical suppliers. That acknowledged, advocates own since pointed to an absence of social recognition for the condition and a drop-off in funding for it in Biden’s funds ask for the Nationwide Institutes of Well being in 2025—and it’s no longer determined if Harris plans to accommodate both teach.

A pair shimmering spots: In August, the authorities announced it will probably maybe maybe restart the free COVID check program in September, allowing everybody to ask four free at-dwelling tests online or over the phone; and updated COVID vaccines own been rolled out nationwide.

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Paid ride away

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to hiss Harris is the most professional-paid ride away presidential candidate…ever. She made her greatest commentary on the topic at some level of her first marketing campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, when she keep forth a proposal for six months of paid family and clinical ride away; to be determined about correct how ambitious that is, that’s double the amount of time currently equipped as unpaid ride away below the Household Scientific Fling away Act (FMLA). She later championed Biden’s American Families Thought (portion of the Manufacture Assist Greater economic framework), which integrated 12 weeks of guaranteed paid parental, family, and sick ride away. Though it did now not acquire congressional fortify, all signs novel Harris reviving the battle for paid ride away if elected.

Throughout a marketing campaign tournament in Wilmington, Delaware, in July, Harris acknowledged: “We own in a future the place no child has to grow up in poverty; the place all and sundry can rob a home, launch a family, and construct wealth; and the place all and sundry has entry to paid family ride away and fairly priced child care.” That final bit displays her dedication to supporting fogeys and caregivers, no longer correct within the principle few months postpartum, however within the next years too. In the industrial scheme she revealed in August, Harris proposed an expanded child tax credit of as a lot as $3,600 per child (up from the novel $2,000), moreover as $6,000 in tax relief for lower-earnings families at some level of the principle year of a brand contemporary child’s existence. And in her New Technique Forward, she pledged to battle for lower care fees, including that of “excessive-quality child care.”

Even Harris’s own of Walz as a running mate is a sturdy signal of her family-focused priorities: As Minnesota governor, he signed into law the Midwest’s first paid ride away program and expanded the teach’s child tax credit to $1,750 per child (currently one of the best within the nation). What’s extra, he’s even acknowledged paid ride away desires to be the first thing handed if the Dems own. And Harris’s file is plenty indication that she’d invent it a precedence moreover.

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Your well being is repeatedly on the ballot—and your vote is extra noteworthy than you place! Notice SELF’s coverage of the 2024 election right here.