Healthcare and the 2024 Elections: What’s Being Offered?
INTERVIEW ON THE PRICE OF BUSINESS SHOW, MEDIA PARTNER OF THIS SITE.
Recently Kevin Price, Host of the nationally syndicated Price of Business Show, interviewed Dr. David Wilcox.
Health Transparency: The Real Truth with Dr. David Wilcox
For the first time in many years, healthcare isn’t a major campaign theme in the 2024 elections. While it’s being mentioned it is not at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election. I find this interesting as the American Healthcare System ranks last among industrialized nations for quality outcomes. At a cost of 17% of gross national product (GNP) we pay more than anywhere else in the world. This is a clear indicator that our healthcare system is broken.
The American Healthcare System is geared toward treating illness instead of proactively trying to keep their citizens healthy. We saw the financial implications of this model during the COVID pandemic when people quit going to doctor’s offices and the hospital and we the taxpayers had to bail them out.
Healthcare policy is dependent on many factors including who controls the House and the Senate but the president has the power to influence healthcare policy at a high level. Our two presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both have track records in the healthcare space so what can we expect under a Trump or Harris administration?
President Trump’s history on healthcare consists of a failed attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without a replacement during his presidency. For this election, he has stated that he not running on terminating the ACA and would rather make it “much much better and far less money,” though he has provided no specific plans. Although during his presidency Trump did suggest plans to convert the ACA into a block grant to states, cap federal funding for Medicaid, and allow states to relax the ACA’s rules protecting people with preexisting conditions. Those plans, if enacted, would have reduced federal funding for health care by about $1 trillion over a decade but people with preexisting conditions would have likely suffered.
His running mate JD Vance has suggested grouping individuals into pools by healthcare risk factors. Younger healthier people would pay less than the aging population which is prone to accessing the healthcare system more frequently. This model would exacerbate the cost of healthcare for older Americans thus increasing costs at a time when retired individuals are often getting by on less income. This model would more than likely delay care. When people are faced with paying for healthcare or necessities like groceries, and housing, they often delay healthcare which means conditions that could have been caught earlier progress and become more costly after they are diagnosed. In Vance’s defense, there are no details on what his plan looks like.
President Trump did establish a voluntary model allowing participating Medicare Part D plans to limit monthly insulin costs to $35 (in effect from 2021 through 2023). The Inflation Reduction Act under the Biden administration cemented this change in place for Americans. One tactic in this battle to cap insulin costs was an organized effort by both administrations to market stories on the effects of rationing insulin and the amount of people who died because they simply couldn’t afford this life saving medication. That had a huge impact on the pharmaceutical companies voluntarily capping the cost of insulin. This was a brilliant strategy.
Much to President Trump’s credit, his administration did propose to establish a “Most Favored Nation” system of international reference prices for some Medicare-covered drugs, where U.S. prices would be based on prices in certain other countries. This was blocked by court action and later rescinded, and to require drug manufacturers to disclose drug prices in television ads which was also blocked by court ruling.
The Biden-Harris administration enacted the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which temporarily expanded eligibility for and increased ACA Marketplace subsidies. These were extended by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) through 2025. This resulted in record enrollment in ACA Marketplace plans and historically low uninsured rates. With these subsidies set to expire in 2025, the next president will be very influential in the decision on whether to expand them or not. Harris has vowed to extend them while Trump has been silent on the issue.
One of the most notable accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration was the Inflation Reduction Act which for the first time in history allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices of some of the costliest medications and capped seniors out of pocket costs for part D prescriptions at $2000 a year.
Both administrations have made attempts to improve the healthcare system but again it takes the House and the Senate to drive any real change. With insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies lobbying against any change that would reduce their profits, it’s a difficult task to make any real changes as we saw with the bipartisan effort to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices. The pharmaceutical companies took the Biden-Harris administration to court in an effort to stop it but lost.
An overhaul of the American Healthcare System is what is needed as we spend more and get less quality outcomes for our healthcare than any other country. This would be a massive effort to make healthcare about the people and not the corporate entities profiting from healthcare. Either candidate running for office would face a huge uphill battle to make such a change. Until that happens we will have to take the wins where we can get them and hope both candidates look out for the healthcare needs of the American people.
According to a statement, “Healthcare is complex and that is not an accident. It is complex by the healthcare entities vying for your healthcare dollars. Covid has exacerbated the American Healthcare System, which was fragile, to begin with. Many clinicians are leaving healthcare due to burnout. How does the average layperson navigate the complexities of the American Healthcare System where a prescription could cost you $5 at one pharmacy and $500 at another? What does the average layperson do when their insurance company rejects their claim? Proactive education of the American Healthcare System prior to accessing it is the key to safely navigating the healthcare system. Until now, little information has been available to provide the layperson with the knowledge they need to be a better partner in their health care. Dr. David Wilcox’s book How to Avoid Being a Victim of the American Healthcare System: A Patient’s Handbook for Survival” is a game-changer and will provide you with the skill set you need to navigate the American Healthcare System.
Website: https://drdavidwilcox.com/
Dr. Wilcox is a Doctorate prepared nurse who also holds a Masters in Health Administration and is Board Certified in Nursing Informatics. Dr. Wilcox has 28 years of healthcare experience in which he worked as a bedside nurse, hospital administrator, and in healthcare information technology which has helped him to develop his unique perspective on the American Healthcare System.
Dr. Wilcox is the author of the book “How to Avoid Being a Victim of the American Healthcare System: A Patient’s Handbook for Survival (2021)” available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578878364
Dr. Wilcox currently resides in North Carolina with his wife and their three dogs.
Dr Wilcox’s website: Dr. David Wilcox – Healthcare, American Healthcare System (drdavidwilcox.com)
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