How Trump, Harris propose cutting healthcare costs

The economy and healthcare are two of the top concerns for voters in this election cycle, and both tickets have promised to lower healthcare costs. 

When she introduced her economic agenda earlier this year, Vice President Harris indicated she would continue what the Biden administration has begun when it comes to making healthcare affordable. 

That includes extending cost-cutting measures for Medicare recipients, such as drug price negotiations enacted through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). 

“I’ll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone, with your support, not only our seniors and demand transparency from the middlemen who operate between Big Pharma and the insurance companies who use opaque practices to raise your drug prices and profit off your need for medicine,” Harris said during a speech in August. 

She also said she would look to cancel medical debt in the same vein that North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) administration is seeking to do, in which hospitals are incentivized to wipe away patient debt. 

Former President Trump's campaign has similarly leaned on his first term in office to illustrate what a second administration would do to help combat high healthcare costs. 

During the vice-presidential debate, Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) highlighted the Trump administration’s rule requiring hospitals to publish their prices as evidence of Trump’s work to lower costs. 

“You go into a hospital, you try to buy something, and nobody knows what it actually costs. That price transparency will actually give American consumers a little bit more choice and will also drive down costs,” Vance said. 

While in office, Trump also signed into law a bill banning “gag clauses” between pharmacists, pharmacy benefit managers and insurers that prevented pharmacists from disclosing cheaper options. 

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, indicated to Stat that Trump would enact policies similarly aimed at promoting price transparency. 

“By increasing transparency, promoting choice and competition, and expanding access to new affordable healthcare and prescription drug options, President Trump will make healthcare affordable again,” Leavitt told the outlet. 

As Stat noted, Trump seems to have abandoned one proposal he made for lowering healthcare costs. 

During his first term, Trump signed an executive order ensuring Medicare wouldn’t pay more for physician-administered drugs than other developed countries, but that rule was rescinded under the Biden administration following a court order to halt it. 

Trump and his campaign have offered mixed messages on whether he will seek to restore that rule. Asked to clarify his plans, RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly did not give a direct answer.

"President Trump will fight to get Americans the best drug prices in the world that are produced at the highest standard by manufacturing them here in the USA," she said.

Trump has vowed to rescind unspent money for climate provisions under the IRA, but he hasn’t said whether he’d rescind the Medicare drug price negotiation program. Before his first term, he had promised to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices though he ultimately didn’t pass any such measure.