WASHINGTON — Democrats have been unapologetic this week about their health care priority in this election: protecting abortion rights and making Americans feel safe again.
The four-day event in Chicago portrayed a party renewed in its resolve to fight for reproductive rights, affordable medicines, medical freedom and better mental health. Former President Bill Clinton called Harris “President Joy.” Oprah Winfrey called Harris-Waltz a “common sense” candidate and urged voters to “choose joy.” Former First Lady Michelle Obama told cheering crowds that “hope is being resurrected.”
Vice President Kamala Harris took the stage Thursday night in a similar vein, saying, “In this election, our nation has a rare and fleeting opportunity to move beyond the bitterness, cynicism and divisive conflicts of the past. We have a chance to forge a new path — not as members of any particular party or faction, but as American citizens.”
But while elements of the Democratic National Convention – including a roll call vote featuring Lil Jon – contrasted sharply with last month’s Republican National Convention, speakers were quick to attack former President Trump’s health care policy goals.
“They will repeal the Affordable Care Act. They will eviscerate Social Security and Medicare. And they will ban abortion across the country, with or without Congress’ approval,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, said Wednesday.
A large bound copy of Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration created by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, was held up and referenced repeatedly during dozens of speeches.
Trump himself has distanced himself from the project, calling it “very extreme.” Harris’ activists, and on Thursday the vice president himself, pointed out that many of the project’s authors worked in the first Trump administration.
The 900-page Project 2025 was “written by the president’s top advisers and its overall message is to take our country back to the past,” Harris said. “But America, we are not going back to the past.”
The Trump campaign issued seven emails during and immediately after Harris’ speech attacking her record on the border, the economy and taxes but did not address Harris’ claims Thursday night about health care.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t tackle health issues again soon. Here are the major health issues the DNC has covered and how the Trump campaign is responding.
Reproductive Rights
The big theme this week was Harris’ intention to reinstate Roe v. Wade and make it law, lifting restrictions in the 25 states that have seen abortion protections reversed nationwide since the Supreme Court overturned them.
“Let’s be clear about how we got to this point: Donald Trump handpicked justices on the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom, and now he’s bragging about it,” Harris said.
Trump has certainly boasted that his three successful nominations have shaped the Supreme Court, but he also claims that a majority of Americans, regardless of party, wanted Roe overturned. This is not borne out by polls. Most voters Opposing the 2022 court decision.
Unlike the Republican National Convention, nearly every major speaker at the Democratic National Convention addressed abortion and framed it as an issue of personal freedom. Monday night’s speeches featured three women who described how abortion restrictions endanger their own health or create new barriers for abused minors, like Hadley Duvall, who suffered a miscarriage after being sexually abused by her stepfather.
President Trump has said he wants to leave abortion laws up to the states, and supports exceptions for cases of rape, incest and when the pregnant woman’s life is at risk, but medical experts say it’s difficult to know who those exceptions would actually apply to, and under what circumstances doctors could be penalized for performing abortions.
Beyond abortion rights, Democrats have repeatedly cited Project 2025, painting the picture that a second Trump administration would also restrict access to contraception and fertility treatments.
“Page 562 tells us that Donald Trump could singlehandedly ban abortion in all 50 states using an obscure law from the 1800s and even send doctors to prison,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis told delegates. “Page 486 places restrictions on birth control. Page 450 threatens access to IVF and page 455 of Project 2025 requires states to report miscarriages to the Trump Administration.”
But Democrats’ reproductive rights messaging has also come under increasing Republican criticism. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, accused Waltz of lying about his family’s fertility history when he said his wife underwent in vitro fertilization to have a child. Gwen Waltz actually underwent intrauterine insemination, a procedure in which sperm is inserted into the uterus using a catheter.
“It’s a really weird thing to lie about, isn’t it? There’s nothing wrong with having a baby through IVF or not having a baby, so why would you lie?” Vance told reporters recently in Milwaukee.
While both are common fertility treatments, IUI doesn’t face the same threats as IVF because it doesn’t involve freezing or destroying embryos. For example, earlier this year, an Alabama court ruled that fetuses are persons, making IVF illegal in the state. But the legislature quickly overturned the decision.
Harris’ campaign and Gwen Waltz later clarified that Harris had undergone IUI and was using the term inclusively to refer to IVF. “We were able to have access to fertility treatments,” Tim Waltz said in a pompous speech accepting the vice presidential nomination on Wednesday night.
The issue isn’t likely to go away anytime soon, with Vance and other Republicans clinging to Tim Walz’s comments, arguing the governor is in bad faith and Democrats are stoking fear.
“Is there anything this guy won’t lie about?” said Mike Berg, spokesman for the Republican Senatorial Committee. I wrote to X.
Medical expenses
Harris, Biden and other Democrats also touted the administration’s efforts to lower drug prices through Medicare negotiations and cost caps for seniors. The boast was timely, as the Biden administration released government-negotiated prices for its first set of drugs a week ago.
Biden also touted the lowest uninsured rates in history as enrollment in ACA markets surged. Record low In 2023, Elevated Democrats also are working to preserve marketplace subsidies that keep premium rates low for enrollees, but are set to expire at the end of next year.
On Thursday, the vice president again pointed to Trump’s record: “We’re not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We’re not going back to when he tried to repeal Obamacare, when insurance companies could deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.”
Trump has said he “won’t cut one penny” from Medicare or Social Security as president, and recently told a rally in North Carolina that he was “going to keep the Affordable Care Act in place unless there’s a better solution.”
But during the campaign, Trump called the Medicare negotiations “socialist” price controls and promised to lower drug costs himself, without offering an alternative. He also warned this week that “private health insurance will be gone” under Harris, saying she would institute a “communist” system in which everyone would get health care under a public option.
It’s a perfect attack point for Republicans. Harris supported Medicare for All during the 2020 campaign and co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) while in the Senate, but then withdrew the plan. Polls show that voters are divided on the issue: Many believe health care should be a federal responsibility, but nearly half don’t want to lose their private insurance plans. According to Gallup.
But Harris’ left-of-centre leanings could alienate some progressive voters, a stance that Trump supporters are eager to exploit.
“Spokespeople for Kamala Harris claim she has reversed course again, this time saying she no longer supports socialist Medicare for All,” her campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt told CNN.
Corona Record
Democrats used the opportunity to slam President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, a topic that is not a top priority for many voters but has been the subject of fierce debate between the two sides.
“Donald Trump downplayed the virus while schools were closing and bodies were overflowing in morgues,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said Monday. “He told us to inject bleach into our bodies. He spread conspiracy theories across the country.”
The bleach reference dates back to an April 2020 press conference where Trump suggested the remark. Trump claimed the following day that he had been “sarcastic.” At the press conference, Trump said, “We’re [could] They consider “shining a very strong light on the body” or using a disinfectant “by injecting it internally or by almost washing it.”
Responding to the coronavirus has been a complicated area for both sides. Under the Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed worked with pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine for the virus in record time. The Biden administration has been largely responsible for rolling out the vaccine and lifting emergency measures.
But both Biden and Trump have repeatedly attacked each other’s record, with Trump accusing Democrats of fear-mongering, saying strict shutdowns have slowed the economy and that vaccination and mask mandates infringe on individual freedoms.
Biden and other speakers at the Democratic National Convention said Trump has spread misinformation and COVID-19 conspiracy theories and downplayed the harm and damage caused by the virus. While both parties are eager to get the country out of the pandemic, the Harris campaign has credited Biden with saving the economy from the clutches of COVID-19, something Trump has slammed.
Biden took over the role on Monday, saying, “COVID no longer dominates our lives. We have come from this economic crisis to become the strongest economy in the world, creating a record 16 million new jobs.”
Trump of the Week Blaming the Biden administration He is accused of falsifying employment statistics. The exchange shows that while the pandemic may be over, its role in each side’s rhetoric is not.
