Nearly 20 years ago, Vice President Kamala Harris was on what she thought was a normal lunch date when she learned that her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a famous breast cancer researcher, had been diagnosed with colon cancer. “It was one of the worst days of my life,” Harris recalled in a 2018 interview. Editorial Publication year of The New York Times“I remember the battles she fought, the values she taught me and her commitment to improving health care for all of us. As I continue the fight for a better health care system, I do so in her name.”
When Harris wasn’t performing her duties as San Francisco’s district attorney, she was always by her mother’s side, holding her hand and helping her through “the pain of chemotherapy,” cooking her meals and bringing her soft clothes and hats to wear after her hair fell out. Until her death, two months after her 70th birthday, Harris watched as the disease robbed her of all the quirks that defined her mother’s passionate spirit.
That time with her mother taught her a devastating truth: The American health care system doesn’t prioritize the people it’s supposed to serve, but rather how much money it can make from them. That realization has shaped her thinking about and efforts to improve US health care policy ever since.
“There should be nothing partisan about wanting a system where health insurance and care aren’t based on how much money you have or where you live. We need a system that targets good outcomes, not high profits,” Harris wrote in the op-ed. “I believe health care should be a right, but the reality is that in this country it’s still a privilege. And that needs to change.”
Harris said she remembers “thanking God” that her mother was on Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for people over 65, when she was diagnosed in 2008. At the time, private health insurers were allowed to charge higher premiums, impose exclusions, or outright deny coverage for conditions diagnosed before enrollment. It wasn’t until 2010 that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, became law. The ACA protects Americans from these tactics, allowing more people to get health insurance they can actually afford.
This experience led Harris to oppose Republican-led lawsuits that seek to repeal some of the ACA’s protections or the entire plan. She was one of the first senators to support Medicare for All, a single-payer national health insurance program introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders that aims to provide Americans across the nation with health insurance without premiums, deductibles, copayments, or surprise bills. “Medical procedures already have risks. Prescription drugs already have side effects,” Harris wrote. “Financial anxiety should not be one of them.” Harris then introduced her own “Medicare for All” bill in 2019, but her campaign has since said the bill is no longer on her agenda, which is unfortunate.
