Trump, Harris plans on drug costs, abortion, Obamacare differ

Prescription drug costs. Abortion rights. The future of Obamacare. 

The fast-approaching presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump could lead to a huge range of outcomes for patients on those issues and others in the sprawling U.S. health system.

Both candidates are pledging to make care more affordable in the U.S., an outlier in the developed world due to its higher health-care spending, worse patient outcomes and barriers to access. But the candidates appear to have different approaches to doing so if elected. 

The candidates have not yet released detailed proposals on health policy, which ranks slightly lower than other issues at the top of voters’ minds, such as the economy. But each candidate’s track record provides a glimpse of what drug costs, health care and reproductive rights could look like over the next several years. 

“A Trump administration will try to slash federal health spending to pay for tax cuts and reduce the role of the federal government in health,” Drew Altman, CEO and president of health policy research organization KFF, told CNBC. He said a Harris administration “will build on existing programs, increasing federal spending to make health care more affordable for people.”

It wouldn’t be easy for either administration to make sweeping changes: The U.S. has a complicated and entrenched health-care system of doctors, insurers, drug manufacturers and other middlemen, which costs the nation more than $4 trillion a year. Any overhaul of the U.S. health-care system would also depend on which party controls Congress, and on the policies state lawmakers pass.

Despite spending more on health care than any other high-income country, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases and the highest maternal and infant death rate among those nations, according to a 2023 report published by The Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group.

Around half of American adults say it is difficult to afford health care, which can drive some patients into debt or lead them to put off necessary care, according to a May poll conducted by KFF. 

Here’s how Harris and Trump differ in their approaches to key health-care issues. 

Both candidates have pledged to lower prescription drug costs in the U.S. as many Americans struggle to afford treatments. The nation’s medication costs are nearly three times higher than those in other countries, according to the nonprofit research firm RAND. 

About 1 in 5 adults say they have not filled a prescription in the last…