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By MATTHEW HOLT
The Democratic conference wrapped with a tremendous speech from Kamala Harris, star energy from the Obamas and Clintons, and a bunch of Republicans telling their ideological brethren that it was higher to be a Democrat than a Trumper. Extra importantly no Beyonce/Taylor Swift duet–as we were promised by Mitt Romney.
There was loads of speak about some elements of well being care. However general if Harris wins, don’t count on a lot change to the present well being care system.
Why not?
First there’s the pure politics. The Dems must win again the Home (possible however not sure) and maintain the Senate to cross laws. Proper now they’ve a 51-49 edge within the Senate. Most probably that goes to 50-50 because the Republicans will certainly decide up Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia. There’s a collection of seats the Dems at the moment maintain in shut races (Montana, Ohio, MIchigan, Nevada, Arizona) that they’ll must preserve to keep up it at 50-50, and it’s exhausting to see any pickups from Republicans (maybe Florida or Texas if you happen to squint actually exhausting). The excellent news is that Manchin (WV) and Sinema (AZ) will quickly each be gone, so the Dems that can be there gained’t be as troublesome to steer to observe a Presidential agenda. However that may nonetheless go away Walz as VP to do what Harris did and cross a bunch of deciding votes below reconciliation, which massively limits what the laws can do–it must be “price range associated.”
Which leads us to what now we have been listening to from Harris and her marketing campaign about well being care? We’ve heard lots about points which have impacts on well being, particularly creating inexpensive housing and combating baby poverty, however little that’s straight associated to well being care itself. Actually solely two points stand out. Abortion and reproductive rights, and drug costs.
Clearly Harris will take a swing at reversing Dobbs and passing a nationwide proper to abortion. This can want both a packing of the Supreme Court docket (my favourite) or ending the filibuster or each. Both of those can be extremely powerful to tug off constitutionally and politically and can take large quantities of political oxygen. After all the cynics would say, the Democrats are higher off leaving this as a difficulty to make use of to beat up the Republicans on. However if it will get achieved, womens’ and reproductive rights will solely be again the place they have been in 2022.
Concerning the value of medicine, there’ll proceed to be a lot justified bashing of massive pharma, however the extension of insulin value controls is one thing that (ultimately) the market through CivicaRX and others is attending to anyway. In the meantime the IRA gave Medicare the fitting to barter drug costs and the outcomes should not precisely earth shattering. For instance, CMS says it’s negotiated the cost of blood thinner Eliquis from about $6,000 a year to under $3,000 This sounds good till you understand that the worth is just that prime due to patent video games the producer BMS performs within the US, and the worth in the remainder of the world is under $1,000. We’ll hear extra about this as the worth cuts come into impact, (though not until 2026!) and extra medication get negotiated, however general this isn’t precisely an earth-shattering change.
Lastly there’s already a assured combat about extending the premium subsidies for ACA plans. These have been first within the pandemic American Rescue Act, then prolonged within the IRA, however they at the moment are scheduled to finish in 2025. It’s exhausting to think about them not being prolonged additional regardless of the make-up of the Senate, assuming a Democratic Home of Representatives. (A Marjorie Taylor Greene speakership does give me pause!). However once more there’s nothing new right here and the general taste of pricey premiums and excessive deductibles within the present ACA market gained’t change.
So what’s not going to occur? Nearly all of the attention-grabbing stuff we have been promised by Harris and for that matter Biden in 2020. You might have missed the one precise “policy-first” speech on the conference which came from Bernie Sanders. To be honest loads of his agenda was already within the Biden laws. That was no accident as Biden intentionally reached out to him in 2020 and 2021 and enacted a fairly radical agenda on infrastructure, local weather, industrial coverage and extra. And after I say radical I imply milquetoast social democrat by European requirements! However what wasn’t in that agenda? No Medicare for all, which Bernie ran on in 2019/20 and introduced up once more on the conference. Who else proposed that in 2019? Why, a sure Kamala Harris. That by no means made it into the Biden agenda. We didn’t even get laws launched about lowering the Medicare age to 60, which was a marketing campaign promise. There’s been no dialog about any of this from Harris or from Biden earlier than he withdrew. It’s only a bridge too far.
Which results in the stuff that will get debated about in THCB and elsewhere as to how the system truly works. There’s been nothing about Medicaid enlargement (or its continued contraction). No speak about reining in hospital consolidation. No point out even of insurers gaming Medicare Benefit or personal fairness shopping for up doctor practices. Nothing in regards to the enlargement of value-based care.
What we will count on in a Harris administration is extra of the identical from CMS and probably a barely extra aggressive FTC. That can imply continued efforts to veer barely away from fee-for-service in Medicare, a couple of extra constraints on the worst habits in Medicare Benefit, and presumably some warning photographs from the FTC about hospital monopolies. However the traits we’ve seen lately will largely proceed. We’re not getting a primary-care based mostly capitated system rising from the wreckage of what now we have now, and in contrast to the Clinton and even Obama administrations, there’s not even any rhetoric from Harris or Biden about how that might be a good suggestion.
So politically I don’t assume the Harris administration can be very thrilling for well being care. And if the opposite man wins, as Jeff Goldsmith wrote on THCB final month, count on even much less.
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