watercress words by Dr Aletha

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The Democratic National Convention has concluded but even before it started the delegates chose Vice President Kamala Harris candidate for President and Governor Tim Walz for Vice President.

Harris is the first woman to serve as Vice President but was not the first woman candidate on a major party ticket. (Do you know who it was? Answer below.)

Harris is not the first woman to run for President on a major party ticket; Hilary Clinton was. If elected, Kamala Harris will be the first woman President of the United States.

A New Democratic Party Platform

The new Party Platform was first released in July, before President Biden’s announcement that he would not run for reelection. With the convention so near, they left it mainly intact even though Vice President Harris is now the party’s nominee.

As I did with the 2016-2020 platform, I read the new platform with particular attention to healthcare-related issues. I summarize those in this post focussing on future plans rather than what the administration has already done. You can read those in the entire platform. I’ll post the link.

’24 DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM

PREAMBLE

The platform begins with a preamble mentioning several health-related issues accomplished during the Biden-Harris administration including

• lowered health insurance premiums
• lowered drug costs
• passed gun safety laws
• reducing pollution
• seizing fentanyl

It warns that a Trump administration will “gut Medicare, Medicaid, health care, and prescription drug coverage.”

Next, are nine chapters, with chapters 3, 5, 6, and 8 focusing on health issues. The entire document is 92 pages.

Chapter 3: Lowering Costs

Health care should be a right in America, not a privilege. Every American deserves the peace of mind that quality, affordable coverage brings.

We’ll never quit fighting to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act, making quality care more accessible and affordable, as the Biden-Harris administration has done.

Democrats have expanded the health insurance premium tax credit twice, saving millions of Americans an average of $800 a year on coverage; and helping an additional 1.7 million Latinos, 830,000 Black Americans, and 110,000 Asian Americans buy more affordable insurance.

Republicans want to let those credits expire, increasing premiums. Democrats will fight to make them permanent.

As Democrats, we support Medicaid expansion, encouraging states to provide health coverage to low-income Americans on the federal government’s tab.

The Administration has helped over a million people in four states to enroll; and we’ll keep pushing Congress to further expand Medicaid-like coverage to the 2.8 million uninsured low-income adults who live in states where Republicans still refuse the help.

Democrats are working to protect kids’ health coverage as well, by removing financial barriers for the Children’s Health Insurance Program; and making it easier for families to keep kids on Medicaid.

Democrats believe that quality, affordable health care should be available in every corner of America.

The Administration has invested in new mobile health clinics; and in keeping community and rural health centers, lifelines for tens of millions of people, open, well-staffed, and well-equipped. We want to double those investments now.

And the Administration is cracking down on federally funded health care providers that turn away or otherwise discriminate against people on the basis of race, sex, age, national origin, or disability.

Democrats will keep working to grow the health care workforce, so workplace and other provider shortages no longer create barriers to quality care and inflate health care costs.

We are investing in programs that train primary care practitioners, registered nurses, mental health specialists, and others to work across our health care system, including in rural and low-income areas.

The Administration is also cracking down on surprise medical billing and junk health insurance, so patients are no longer ambushed by unexpected bills or scammed into buying low-quality health coverage.

Democrats will expand “no-surprise billing” to include costly ground ambulances; and we’ll keep using antitrust laws to stop hospital, insurance, and Big Pharma mergers that undermine competition and increase health care prices for consumers.

Democrats will keep fighting to ease the burden of medical debt, which makes it harder for millions of Americans to get a mortgage or other loan for the future. Democrats provided funding to forgive $7 billion in medical debt for nearly 3 million Americans; and the Administration is urging states to use remaining funds to do more.

It already persuaded credit reporting agencies to exclude many medical debts from credit reports, boosting people’s credit scores and prospects for the future.

Democrats will keep pushing to exclude medical debts from credit scoring entirely.

Democrats also support the Administration’s historic work to close fundamental gaps in women’s health care, including by protecting access to reproductive health care. This includes its efforts to reduce maternal mortality, led by Vice President Harris. She called for states to provide a full year of postpartum coverage for Medicaid beneficiaries, with 46 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands now taking that step.

The Administration is also making transformative investments in women’s health research to find better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat health conditions in women, and to make care more accessible and affordable.

And it is leading game-changing work to end cancer as we know it, including through the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.

President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats took on Big Pharma and won. Democrats capped the price of insulin at $35 a month, down from as much as $400, for nearly 4 million seniors on Medicare.

And President Biden persuaded the nation’s top three insulin makers to lower their prices for everyone. Now, we’ll fight to expand that $35 cap to cover everyone, saving millions of Americans with diabetes nearly $1,000 a year.

Starting next year, the Inflation Reduction Act also caps total out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 a year for millions of seniors and otherson Medicare. Democrats will fight until that cap covers every single American.

For the first time, Medicare now also has the ability to negotiate lower drug prices, as private insurers and the VA have done for decades. It started doing so this year, beginning with 10 commonly used medications for conditions such as diabetes and heart failure.

Democrats will push to add at least 50 drugs a year to that list, lowering prices for 500 drugs this decade. Medicare Part-D is also working to cap cost-sharing for life-saving generics at $2 a dose; Democrats will make this mandatory for all Medicare beneficiaries.

The Administration is also leading the charge against Big Pharma price gouging, by requiring drugmakers that raise prices faster than inflation to pay the difference back to Medicare, which will then pass savings on to consumers. This will protect over 750,000 seniors, who could save as much as $4,500 per over-priced dose. Democrats will keep fighting to expand these rebates, applying them when drugmakers overcharge not just Medicare, but private insurers as well.

We’re also cracking down on improper drug patent listings, which some drugmakers use to shut out competition. Once companies drop their improper patent listings, other companies will be free to make cheaper alternatives.

The FTC’s work in this area has already pushed three of the biggest makers of inhalers to lower prices to $35 a month, saving people with asthma hundreds of dollars a year.

The Administration also enacted rules to finally make hearing aids available over-the-counter, saving millions of Americans up to $3,000 a pair.

And Democrats will continue the Administration’s work to require that any drugs developed with taxpayer dollars be available to taxpayers, including at reasonable prices.

Democrats will keep working to lower drug prices by requiring more transparency from the “pharmacy benefit manager” middlemen who generally decide which drugs are covered by insurance and bought by doctors, and how much they cost.

We’ll never back down from our ironclad commitment to protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

We also oppose any actions to cut Medicare benefits. We’ll look to expand traditional Medicare coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing services, which are so key to health and quality of life, by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.

Chapter Five: Protecting Communities & Tackling the Scourge of Gun Violence

All Americans deserve freedom from fear: to be confident that their children will come home safely from the store or the playground, and to know that their loved one will come home safely from their shift policing the streets.

Young Americans deserve a president who’s fighting to keep guns out of school. Families deserve a president who has delivered safer neighborhoods.

Democrats will establish universal background checks, a step supported by the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners.

We will once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. We will require safe storage for guns.

Democrats will end the gun industry’s immunity from liability, so gunmakers can no longer escape accountability. We will pass a national red flag law to prevent tragedies by keeping weapons out of dangerous hands.

We will increase funding to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for enforcement and prosecution, and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for firearm background checks.

And, because the gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis, we will fund gun violence research across the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as community violence interventions.

Democrats will work to end sexual assault, domestic violence, online abuse, and all violence against women.

We continue to strengthen VAWA (Violence Against Women Act); keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers; and expand housing and legal services for survivors.

To keep students safe on campus, we will work with schools to implement and enforce Title IX and end sexual harassment and assault in our nation’s schools.

We will eliminate the rape kit backlog.

We will strengthen legal protections for and support survivors of deepfake image-based sexual abuse building on the federal civil cause of action established under the president’s reauthorization of VAWA in 2022.

Chapter Six: Strengthening Democracy, Protecting Freedoms, & Advancing Equity

President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats are fighting back to restore reproductive freedom for every woman in every state. The Administration is protecting access to abortion, including by creating a new path for pharmacies to dispense FDA-approved medication abortion and defending access in court.

It is expanding reproductive health care for service members, veterans, and their family members.

The Administration is defending access to emergency medical care, including clarifying that federal law on emergency care preempts state abortion bans, educating patients on their rights, making it easier for patients who have been denied emergency care to file a complaint, and ensuring hospitals meet their legal obligations to offer care.

It is challenging threats from Republicans to prosecute people who help women travel to a different state for abortion care, and helping states expand access under Medicaid for women who travel from states with bans.

We are safeguarding patients’ and providers’ privacy, including by strengthening HIPAA protections, cracking down on the illegal sharing of personal information, strengthening consumer data protections, and issuing guidance to protect student privacy in this area.

And we are ensuring access to accurate information and legal resources, including by launching ReproductiveRights.gov and convening more than 200 lawyers and advocates to support abortion-related legal defense services.

Democrats are also working to expand access to birth control. The Administration has boosted access to free and low-cost services through the Title X family planning program, and expanded access to birth control for service members and through the VA.

Vice President Harris and Democrats are committed to restoring the reproductive rights Trump ripped away. With a Democratic Congress, we will pass national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again.

We will strengthen access to contraception so every woman who needs it is able to get and afford it. We will protect a woman’s right to access IVF.

Democrats will work to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and end pay inequity not just in the federal workforce, but throughout the economy with penalties for companies that discriminate against women.

We will guarantee affordable, high-quality child care from birth until kindergarten, with most families paying just $10 a day — and make it free for low-income families.

We will protect the health and dignity of older adults and people with disabilities by improving long-term care and supporting family caregivers, and we will invest in care infrastructure by raising wages and the quality of care worker jobs.

We will establish a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program to ensure that all workers, including women, can take the time they need to bond with a new child, care for a loved one, or recover from an illness.

We are also closing fundamental gaps in women’s health care and addressing the maternal health crisis.

Vice President Harris came into office as a key leader on maternal health and continues to lead the fight for improved maternal health outcomes, elevating the issue nationally and convening experts and activists to find solutions.

The American Rescue Plan gave States the option to provide a full year of postpartum coverage to women on Medicaid, increasing it from just 60 days. Vice President Harris challenged all states to provide a full year of coverage; and 46 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands now do.

The Administration also expanded access to maternity care coordinators for U.S. military veterans, from eight weeks to 12 months postpartum.

And, it established the first-ever national maternal health and safety standards for hospitals across the country, which include requirements that hospitals have resuscitation equipment in labor and delivery rooms and proper protocols and supplies for emergency deliveries.

Democrats will continue working to address the maternal health crisis and ensure every American has access to high-quality, culturally competent care before, during, and after pregnancy. And we will continue to invest in women’s health research to galvanize new research and breakthroughs on a wide range of topics.

Democrats expanded the Child Tax Credit to millions more families, slashing the child poverty rate in half to record lows, including for Black, Latino, and AANHPI children. We’ll keep fighting to make that expansion permanent.

The Administration has also expanded food assistance to those in need, providing the typical low-income family of four about $2,000 more for groceries each year by improving SNAP; and it launched a summer food benefits program that serves nearly 21 million children.

Democrats will keep working to increase food security, including through WIC and Summer EBT, and by bringing back the enhanced Child Tax Credit.

Democrats are also committed to ending generations of environmental injustices that have left communities of color bearing the brunt of toxic pollution and climate change, decaying infrastructure, and inadequate services.

The Administration is delivering on its Justice40 Initiative to deliver 40 percent of the overall benefits of our investments in infrastructure, clean energy and manufacturing investments to disadvantaged communities.

Today, we’re replacing every toxic lead pipe in the country, accelerating Superfund cleanups, cracking down on polluters that have poisoned their neighborhoods air, water, and soil for too long.

We’re making sure that every community benefits from home energy tax credits, low-cost solar panels, and other programs that can save families money while reducing emissions.

And we’re investing in climate-resilient infrastructure that will protect every part of this country from extreme weather and other consequences of climate change.

President Biden has delivered on his promise to ban discrimination in health care on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. He has protected transgender Americans’ access to health care and coverage, including medically necessary gender-affirming care; and implemented a national strategy to end the HIV epidemic in this country. Democrats will build on this progress to expand mental health and suicide prevention services for LGBTQI+ people.

Democrats will enforce laws that ensure equal opportunity for people with disabilities: the ADA, IDEA, the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Mental Health Parity Act, and the Help America Vote Act.

We oppose efforts to weaken the ADA and build on the ACA to prevent health care discrimination. Democrats will enforce the Olmstead integration mandate and enforce non-discrimination protections in health care, employment, education, housing, voting.

We will promote equitable treatment of students with disabilities so every child with disabilities can thrive. And to support people with disabilities and their families, we will support home and community-based care and end the subminimum wage.

Chapter Eight: Advancing the President’s Unity Agenda

For too long, the scourge of opioids has torn through our communities, ripping apart families and shattering lives.

The Biden-Harris Administration is strengthening prevention, investing in treatment, and expanding recovery support services.

To curb opioid overdoses, the Administration is making naloxone, an overdose-prevention drug, available over-the-counter at grocery stores and pharmacies. They also took steps to increase access to naloxone at federal facilities, and ended a requirement for length of addiction before entering treatment.

Democrats will continue these critical investments in life-saving medication and care for Americans struggling with addiction and most at risk of overdose.

We must make it easier for all Americans to access high-quality mental health and substance use treatment by recruiting and training more professionals to deliver culturally and linguistically competent, high-quality behavioral health care; and by strengthening coverage across all health plans.

And we must extend workforce development and incentive programs. The Administration is delivering $1 billion to hire or train 14,000 school-based mental health counselors – the largest investment in school-based mental health in history – thanks to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. And, it is delivering additional resources to support students who need mental health care.

As mental health care becomes increasingly expensive, Democrats are pushing for permanent funding for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, which provide 24/7 crisis care and treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, regardless of individuals’ ability to pay.

Democrats are working to ensure full mental health parity so that mental health care is covered the same as physical health care. We’re strengthening mental health parity requirements and closing insurance loopholes for the more than 150 million Americans with private health insurance. 

Democrats will pass bipartisan legislation to protect kids’ privacy and to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and put stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.

The Administration launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which is supercharging high-impact research and development to improve American health outcomes and deliver breakthroughs on cancer.

We’re supporting these initiatives by providing funds to essential programs for cancer research and health care like the National Cancer Institute (NCI), FDA, Center of Disease Control (CDC), Veterans Affairs (VA), Indian Health Service (IHS), and ARPA-H.

Democrats are also taking steps to support veterans’ mental health and decrease the scourge of veteran suicides by expanding mental health screenings, increasing access to legal and financial support, and hiring more mental health professionals at the VA.

The Administration will prioritize the effective implementation of the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act, including by successfully operating the Offices of Special Trial Counsel within the military services branches, and the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Going forward, we will continue to implement the PACT Act; and we will strengthen VA care by fully funding inpatient and outpatient care and long-term care, and by upgrading medical facility infrastructure.

We will also improve and increase access to mental health care, expand suicide prevention, and invest in opioid overdose prevention and treatment.

Democrats are also determined to expand women veterans’ health care and access to benefits, and to continue implementing key Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault recommendations. With a second term in office and a majority in Congress, we will fulfill our promise to end veteran homelessness and support military students with disabilities.

Democrats will strengthen their support for military families by making child care more affordable and accessible, expanding job opportunities for spouses, and investing in a stipend for caregivers.

2024 Democratic Party Platform

For comparison, you can read my review of the 2020 Democratic Party Platform here

Exploring the HEART of Health

Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic candidate for Vice President in 1984. Republican Sarah Palin was the candidate in 2008. Many women have run for President and Vice President.

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