Global health: The Harris administration is set to take a similar approach to global health as President Joe Biden.
Overall, global health spending increased under Biden. In 2022, the US was the largest donor to global health, providing $15.8 billion dollars in health Official Development Assistance (ODA), although high spending was mostly driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Harris will likely contribute to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic treaty negotiations. However, the Senate may resist any agreement made (expected May 2025 at the latest) as conservative commentators such as The Heritage Foundation have said the treaty threatens American national sovereignty. This claim has been described as “an outright lie by” Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (see yesterday’s Health Pro Brief), the current text of the agreement explicitly rules this out.
Biden has not been without critics in the field of health. In 2024, he cut funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief which has been credited with saving 25 million lives in Africa, citing budgetary concerns.
Pharmaceuticals: Bolstering investment in pharmaceuticals and R&D, much like the Biden administration, is central to Harris' economic plans.
Like the EU, the US has struggled to address medicine shortages and has a similar dependence on Chinese and Indian active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs, or raw materials).
Harris has stated that she wants to cut drug prices through a new insurance plan in the Affordable Care Act and take on Big Pharma by broadening the number of drugs eligible for Medicare price negotiations. This process has started, with the first drugs named.
In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration passed national legislation to lower drug prices for seniors as part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
If Harris is elected and keeps her promise to hold ‘Big Pharma’ accountable, this may inspire EU member states to do the same – even if prices can vary by 240 percent for prescription brand-name drugs on the opposite side of the Atlantic.
Reproductive health : Under the Biden administration, the president promised to restore Roe and blamed Trump for the overturning of Roe v Wade, a landmark Supreme Court judgement which made abortion a constitutional right in the US.
Harris has put the issue of reproductive rights and abortion in the spotlight, in sharp contrast to former President Donald Trump. However, if elected it is unlikely that she can restore and codify Roe, the only way to circumvent the court’s decision, as it is expected that she will be blocked by a divided House and Senate. [EP]
And Trump?
‘Concept’ of a plan: We don’t know much about what Trump’s actual healthcare policy is, but he has declared that he has the “concepts of a plan”. Primarily, he has said that he wants to replace the Affordable Care Act, the totemic achievement of the Obama administration. Nevertheless, with his usual braggadocio he has promised that his plan will be cheaper and better. What’s not to like!
He’s said that he can pretty much end all wars, including the one in Ukraine overnight, so if this is possible then maybe… We will trust our readers' judgement.
Don’t mention the pandemic: What the Democrats have not made much of is Trump’s record during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Trump administrations to underplay the threat and the ‘slow and mismanaged’ response is estimated to have cost thousands of lives.
But lessons have been learnt, right? Trump has been endorsed by the promoter of vaccine conspiracy theories Robert F. Kennedy junior. Trump has said that he is open to banning vaccines, while on the campaign trail and promised him ‘control of the public health agencies’. [CF]
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