Donald Trump made the issue of abortion a key focus during his presidential campaign in 2016 and 2020, pledging to nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, which he did as president.
But with Roe overturned this year, 2024 Republican presidential candidates and the GOP are facing a new health-related social issue: transgender care.
The 2024 Republican platform barely mentions abortion and avoids a proposed nationwide abortion ban, as he called for in 2016, but it does prioritize limited access to gender-affirming care and vows to “ban taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgeries and prevent taxpayer-funded schools from promoting sex transition.”
The focus on transgender issues is perhaps the most visible part of Trump’s health care platform. On other fundamental health policy issues, such as drug prices, insurance premiums and care for seniors, Trump has largely repeated his party’s calls for lowering costs, increasing transparency and expanding access to care.
“Health care will likely be less prominent in this election than in previous ones, but the outcome will still have a major impact on the direction of health care,” said Larry Levitt, vice president of the health care think tank KFF.
The shift from abortion to transgender issues was spurred in part by the overturning of Roe, but also by Republican political instability. Multiple VotesAnd since Roe was overturned, voters have upheld abortion rights in all seven state ballot propositions regarding abortion, even in states where Republicans control a majority of state governments.
As a result, gender reassignment care has become the Republican Party’s biggest issue in this election.
Twenty-five states have enacted measures to restrict medical care for transgender people. Human Rights Campaign.
President Trump has pledged to take several steps to restrict health care at the national level. Said He said that on his first day in office, he would issue an executive order directing all federal agencies to end programs that promote gender transition or sex change at any age.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said: The bill was submitted A bill is set to pass in July 2023 that will make it a criminal offence to provide hormones or surgery to transgender minors, with a prison sentence of up to 12 years.
“The left-wing sexism being forced upon our children is child abuse,” Trump said. Said in a video posted on his campaign website.
In May of this year, the Biden administration Flipped Trump’s policy allows health care providers to refuse medical treatment to transgender individuals — a rule that is currently being challenged in court, and Biden’s move would likely be overturned in a second Trump administration.
Republican Policies for 2024 Referencing “radical gender ideology,” Trump frequently spoke during the campaign about barring transgender people from sports, eliminating federal funding for gender-affirming medical care, and reversing Biden’s changes to Title IX education regulations. The platform also said Republicans would stop funding schools that participate in “gender indoctrination.”
“Just as abortion has historically been, this has become a battleground,” Levitt said.
Drug prices
As president, Trump capitalized on public anger over drug costs during his election campaign.
His administration created a demonstration program that capped the cost of insulin at $35, promulgated rules linking Medicare reimbursements for certain drugs to rates paid in other countries, and promulgated hospital price transparency rules.
He also issued restrictions allowing provinces to import prescription drugs from Canada, a move that Canada has no intention of joining.
The 2024 Republican platform calls for greater transparency in health care costs, greater choice, competition and access to prescription drug options.
“Whenever a policy platform calls for more choice, it’s usually a euphemism for deregulation,” Levitt said, referring to the Trump campaign’s drug pricing proposals.
It is unclear whether Trump, if elected, would implement the Biden administration’s Anti-Inflation Act or whether his administration would continue plans for federal price negotiations on certain prescription drugs. Trump supported drug price negotiations during the 2016 campaign but opposed Biden’s plan.
It may be difficult for the new administration to stop drug negotiations before 2026, when negotiations begin for the first batch of drugs under Medicare Part D. However, the new Trump administration is likely to negotiate prices closer to what insurers are already charging, so the impact would be minimal.
“He’s not friendly to the pharmaceutical industry, and I don’t expect he will be,” Rodney Whitlock, a health consultant at McDermott Consulting and a former Republican congressional staffer, said of Trump. “I don’t expect this administration to be a positive one for the pharmaceutical industry.”
abortion
The Trump team Project 2025A lengthy document outlining what leaders of prominent conservative groups want from a Republican president in 2025.
The Department of Health and Human Services in that plan sectionThe bill, written by Roger Severino, Trump’s former head of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Civil Rights Office, reiterates that the government should not treat abortion as medical care and calls for several policies to restrict abortion access, such as rescinding authorization for medication abortions and removing emergency contraception from the contraception mandate.
The Heritage Foundation, the lead architect of Project 2025, declined to comment on the matter and stressed that Project 2025 does not represent any candidate or campaign.
In an interview that aired on Fox News on Monday, President Trump criticized Project 25’s abortion priorities as “really going too far.”
“Frankly, the people … vote pretty liberal,” Trump said, pointing out that Ohio and Kansas voted to not add anti-abortion language to their state constitutions. “The people can vote how they want. This is not a federal issue. It will never be a federal issue again.”
If re-elected, Trump is expected to restore or expand several executive actions on abortion and family planning, issues he focused on during his presidency and was widely praised by abortion opponents. claimed credit for The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Public Health and Pandemic Preparedness
One of President Trump’s most significant accomplishments during his presidency has been the research and development of a COVID-19 vaccine, something he himself refuses to take credit for.
Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, remains one of the enduring health policy successes of President Trump’s administration, but Republicans have been quick to dismiss the importance of the vaccine and President Trump’s role in its development and rollout.
During the election campaign, Trump repeatedly Vowed to cut funding To schools that require COVID-19 vaccinations. However, all public schools in all 50 states require childhood vaccinations as a condition of admission, and many colleges and universities also require vaccinations.
The 2024 Republican Platform doesn’t mention vaccine policy. Project 2025 does, calling on the Trump Administration to stop enforcing the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for Medicaid and Medicare hospitals and to refrain from imposing COVID-19 mask mandates on health care facilities.
Severino also called for eliminating vaccination mandates in Head Start programs and for greater accommodation for individuals, including doctors, who cannot administer or administer vaccines due to religious beliefs.
President Trump’s health priorities will likely be determined by who he chooses for his Cabinet.
For example, Trump’s former Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar, took little advice from the White House and, in particular, PBM Rebates.
“What we ultimately see here will be very much determined by talent,” Whitlock said.
