WASHINGTON — Sen. J.D. Vance, who was named former President Trump’s running mate on Monday, has a history of investing in health care companies and pursuing health care policies that are sometimes at odds with his party’s base.
Vance, a Yale-educated venture capitalist, has invested in biotech startups developing new treatments, companies seeking to aid drug discovery, health data companies and health technology platforms, according to federal financial disclosures.
Vance shot to fame in 2016 with the publication of “Hillbilly Elegy,” a book about his impoverished Appalachian childhood. Since then, he’s made friends in wealthy places. He co-founded Naria Capital, a venture capital firm with funding from billionaire Peter Thiel and backed by venture capital titan Marc Andreessen and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, which has a portfolio of companies focused on health care.
Trump has taken cues from his vice president on health care issues in the past. Former Vice President Mike Pence had considerable influence over the administration’s health care officials. Trump’s second nominee for health secretary, Alex Azar, was a former executive at Indiana-based pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. Medicare and Medicaid chief Seema Verma also has deep roots in Indiana, as does former Surgeon General Jerome Adams. Trump has also used Pence to shore up his anti-abortion support with evangelical voters.
While Pence was a more traditional evangelical conservative who brought decades of political experience to the list, Vance, 39, is younger and less experienced in politics. He rode the populist wave launched by Trump’s presidency and is less of a contrast to the former president than the staunch conservative Pence is.
President Trump has now led the Republican Party away from calling for a nationwide ban on abortion and toward a position that abortion policy should be left to individual states.
of Party Platform for 2024 Trump has not focused on health care policy beyond promising to “not cut one penny” from Medicare and Social Security. The platform indicates that he wants to step up the party’s fight against gender-affirming care, increase health care transparency and increase access to new, affordable options.
Vance hails from the populist wing of the Republican Party and has shown a rebellious stance on health care issues. Vance voiced his support. He advised AARP on Democrats’ plans to negotiate Medicare drug prices, but he toes the party line on other issues, such as a bill that would exclude children brought to the U.S. by parents without legal immigration status from federal health insurance programs — an issue Trump raised during the campaign. First Presidential Debate.
But he also has ties to the pharmaceutical industry: Vance counts Bob Hugin, the former chairman of Celgene Corp., which came under fire for raising prices of cancer drugs in the 2000s, as a key ally. He lost his senatorial electionHugin donated $50,000. Super PAC Support Trump gave money to Vance in 2022 and donated another $3,000 to his campaign in October 2023, according to campaign finance tracking site Open Secrets.
Vance’s evolving health policy
The Ohio senator has in recent weeks moved his health care policy closer to President Trump’s, at times drawing criticism from conservatives.
For example, Vance has previously said he opposes exceptions to the abortion ban in cases of rape and incest, contradicting President Trump’s emphasis this year that these conditions are necessary for abortion restrictions. The Ohio senator is Spectrum News In 2021, he said: “The question is not whether a woman should be forced to give birth, but whether that child should be allowed to live, even if the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or problematic for society.”
Vance softened his stance in an interview with NBC earlier this month. Meet the Press He said he supports the recent Supreme Court decision to preserve access to the abortion drug mifepristone.
“On the issue of the abortion pill, what many of us are saying is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the pill should be available to the American people. Donald Trump supports that position. I support that position,” Vance said on July 7.
The policy shift drew criticism, including from abortion opponents. Some Republican state legislators.
“[J.D.] “Vance claims to be a Christian, and now all of a sudden he’s trying to legalize the abortion pill that’s responsible for two-thirds of abortions in our country,” said Ben Zeisloft, editor of the conservative news site The Sentinel. I wrote to X“This is probably because Donald Trump now also supports the abortion pill and wants J.D. Vance to be his running mate.”
But Vance is also one of the senators most vocal in pushing for limits on the rights of transgender people, another tenet of the Republican platform.
Last year’s Senator The bill was submitted The bill would make providing gender-affirming care to a minor a felony punishable by 10 to 25 years in prison. The bill would also ban taxpayer funding for gender-affirming procedures, regardless of age, paralleling Republican priorities in the Republican National Committee platform.
The opioid epidemic
Vance’s mother struggled with drug addiction, which is why he’s so committed to tackling the opioid epidemic: He said his mother was hospitalized for prescription opioids before she started using heroin.
In 2016, Vance warned. Then-candidate Trump had to address the opioid epidemic in an op-ed for The Atlantic, where his position was that substance use disorders are particularly prevalent because of the despair caused by economic, social and cultural challenges. was called “Dignified work” is the way out of addiction.
But his own efforts to tackle the problem have been hampered: After the 2016 presidential election, Vance founded a charity to tackle the opioid epidemic he witnessed as a child, but it was shut down just a year later. Associated Press investigation They found that the addiction specialist the organization selected for the year-long training had ties to Purdue Pharma, a longtime marketer of the painkiller OxyContin.
In the Senate, Vance Enacted legislation This would allow parents to request information about controlled substances prescribed to their adult children from their health insurance.
Immigrant Health Care
Vance introduced a bill last year that would deny federal health insurance to people who are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, known by Democrats as “Dreamers.” The policy was finalized A bill to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage to DACA recipients will be passed this May.
Trump has repeatedly spoken about immigrants’ access to federal health care and said illegal immigrants Starving Medicare.
“[Biden]”… It’s destroying Medicare, because all these people are coming in and putting them on Medicare,” he said at a debate last month.
The supporters Said Vance’s bill would strip about 710,000 Americans of their health insurance.
Vance and Public Health
Vance received a letter from Trump. Train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio And there are growing concerns that the chemical spill could have long-term effects on residents’ health.
‘J.D. Vance is great’ – Trump He told reporters The senator stood next to him at an event in Ohio last February.
Vance joined other Republican and Democratic state lawmakers in calling for a federal health response to the disaster. Their letter included a call for the Department of Health and Human Services to enforce a little-known provision of the Affordable Care Act that allows Medicare coverage for people exposed to certain environmental hazards.
His advocacy for East Palestine has sometimes I kicked Vance out of the party.In particular, he is working with Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown on legislation to strengthen rail safety and oversight.
In May of this year, the senator, along with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Criticizing the Federal Government’s Reconciliation The residents said:“There is a risk that the people of eastern Palestine will not be adequately compensated,” Vance said that same month. The bill was submitted This would require HHS to conduct follow-up studies on the health effects of residents’ exposure to the chemicals.
Vance stepped up his calls for the agreement to be reconsidered after transportation officials released the results of their investigation into the derailment in June.“The Biden Justice Department’s premature resolution raises serious questions,” Vance said. It said in a statement.
Response to COVID-19
Senator slams COVID-era vaccine and mask mandates 2021Edit They argued that making COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory would be an “invasion of medical privacy.”
Last year, Gov. Vance introduced a bill to ban mask mandates, calling them a failed pandemic policy.
Children “need us not to become Chicken Little with every single one of these respiratory pandemics and issues that we face in this country,” he said in remarks on the Senate floor. legislation.
Healthcare Investments
Vance’s financial disclosures as a senator shed light on his health care investments.
His largest investments are AmplifyBio and Kriya Therapeutics, ranging from $50,000 to $100,000, according to 2022 financial disclosures. Kriya develops gene therapies to treat diseases such as eye disease, diabetes and epilepsy. AmplifyBio specializes in helping pharmaceutical companies research, develop and manufacture new drugs. Vance has not yet filed his 2023 filings.
His smaller holdings include investments of between $1,000 and $15,000 in a range of companies involved in drug development, healthcare worker training, medical devices, and data and software development.
In the pharmaceutical industry, Vance’s investments include Chase Therapeutics, which is focused on developing treatments for brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and depression; NuScience, which aims to treat terminal cancer; and Pop Biotechnologies, which is developing platform technologies to treat cancer and infectious diseases.
He also appears to be interested in virtual care and health data. Vance has invested in Puerto Rico-based health data management company Abartys Health, voice-based telehealth interface developer DeepConvo, health software company MCH Ventures, online platform developer POPS! Diabetes Care, virtual urgent care platform Ready Responders, and online dementia care training provider Healthcare Interactive.
