Experts Reject JD Vance’s Lies About The Affordable Care Act, Drug Prices, and Reproductive Health Care At the Vice Presidential Debate
Last night, vice presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance laid out very different visions for American health care on the debate stage in New York City. Over the last few weeks, JD Vance has repeatedly attacked the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and called for gutting protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Yet Vance spent the debate trying to cover up Trump’s deeply unpopular record on health care and reproductive rights, falsely claiming that Donald Trump “chose to build upon” the ACA – despite Trump’s top policy priority being a full repeal of the law. During Trump’s time in office, 2.3 million more people became uninsured. He also falsely claimed that Trump lowered drug costs – when the Biden-Harris administration did just that.
The truth is the Trump administration worked tirelessly to repeal and undermine the ACA and did nothing to lower health care costs – prescription drug prices actually rose during his presidency. In contrast, the Biden-Harris administration has built on the success of the ACA, protected people with pre-existing conditions, and lowered drug prices. Vance is spewing lies to try and cover up Trump’s disastrous health care record and their Project 2025 agenda. But don’t just take our word for it:
HEADLINES
HuffPost: JD Vance Completely Rewrote History On Donald Trump And Obamacare. “This is pure fantasy, literally the opposite of the truth. And it matters, because health care for tens of millions of Americans could depend on the election outcome. Voters have a right to know what Trump would do if he gets back to the White House, which means understanding what he actually did when he was there last.” [HuffPost, 10/2/24]
CBS News: False: Vance Claims Prescription Drugs Are Up About 7% Under Biden, But Under Trump, They Went Up Just 1.5% Over Four Years. “The latest figures from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s annual survey estimate that average expenditures per person on prescription drugs — among those who had spent money on prescriptions — had climbed to a mean of $2,820 in 2022, up from $2,549 in 2020. That’s an increase of 11%. But by the same metric, average prescription drug prices per person climbed to $2,303 by 2019, up from $2,107 in 2017, an increase of 9% under Trump. However, measured by a median instead of a mean, expenditures per person for prescription medicines, among people who paid for prescriptions, has largely declined under both the Trump and Biden administrations since 2018.” [CBS News, 10/2/24]
Mother Jones: When Vance Said Abortion Rights Should Be “Left to the States,” He Ignored an Inconvenient Fact. “GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance has a refrain he loves to repeat when he’s questioned about his draconian anti-abortion positions and former President Donald Trump’s plans for reproductive rights: Leave it to the states. […] But there’s a problem. The GOP keeps trying to sabotage abortion rights ballot measures before they even get to voters. They did so in Ohio last year, by instituting a special election in August to try to raise the threshold to amend the state constitution, […] If, as Vance suggests, abortion policy should be determined by a democratic process, it would be legal nationwide, which polling shows is the preference of the majority of Americans. But short of that, as Vance says, reproductive rights will be left to the states. And the GOP in those states shows no interest in letting voters have their say without a fight.” [Mother Jones, 10/2/24]
STAT: Health Care Policy Features Prominently in Vance-Walz VP Debate. “Vance described his previous statement as being about reinsurance and said Trump favored the idea to ‘allow states to experiment a little bit on how to cover both the chronically ill but the non-chronically ill.’” [STAT, 10/2/24]
NPR: NPR Fact Checked The Vance-Walz Vice Presidential Debate. Here’s What We Found. “During his presidency, Trump undermined the Affordable Care Act in many ways — for instance, by slashing funding for advertising and free ‘navigators’ who help people sign up for a health insurance plan on HealthCare.gov. And rather than deciding to ‘save’ the ACA, he tried hard to get Congress to repeal it, and failed. The Biden administration has reversed course from Trump’s management of the Affordable Care Act. Increased subsidies have made premiums more affordable in the marketplaces, and enrollment has surged. The uninsurance rate has dropped to its lowest point ever during the Biden administration. The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 and is entrenched in the health care system. Republicans successfully ran against Obamacare for about a decade, but it has faded as a campaign issue this year.” [NPR, 10/2/24]
ABC News: Vice Presidential Debate Fact Check: Claims Made By Gov. Tim Walz And Sen. JD Vance. “VANCE CLAIM: Vance claimed that Trump made the Affordable Care Act stronger. FACT-CHECK: False. The Trump administration cut millions of dollars in marketing and enrollment aid for the law’s health plans and backed failed congressional and legal efforts to overturn the law. The Trump administration in June 2020 asked the Supreme Court to overturn the law in a case more than a dozen Republican-led states had brought; the high court rejected it. Affordable Care Act enrollment declined by more than 2 million people during Trump’s presidency, and the number of uninsured Americans rose by 2.3 million, including 726,000 children, from 2016 to 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau reported; that includes three years of Trump’s presidency.” [ABC 6, 10/1/24]
InsideHealthPolicy: Vance Says Trump Will Keep ACA Preexisting Conditions Protections, Advocates Cry Foul. “A potential Trump administration would not get rid of preexisting conditions protections, the Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance said during the Tuesday (Oct. 1) VP debate, but Democrats and some stakeholders don’t believe his promise as they review details of the GOP presidential hopeful’s plan to let insurers divide people into plans based on their health care risks. ‘Trump and Vance have made their stance on health care clear: they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act and Inflation Reduction Act, slash Medicaid and Medicare funding, take away protections for pre-existing conditions, raise prescription drug and premium costs, and strip away health care from millions of Americans,’ Protect Our Care Executive Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement after the VP debate.” [InsideHealthPolicy, 10/2/24]
Denver7: Denver7 Investigates Fact-Checks Statements Made During Walz-Vance Vice Presidential Debate. “Vance brought up Trump and his role with the Affordable Care Act, claiming the former president helped save a program that was on the verge of collapse. However, during Trump’s time in office, ACA enrollment declined by more than 2 million people, and the number of uninsured grew by roughly 2.3 million. According to PolitiFact, the Trump administration cut millions of dollars in enrollment aid and asked the Supreme Court to overturn the law. Fact Check: False.” [Denver7, 10/2/24]
SOCIAL MEDIA
PolitiFact: “No, Trump did not ‘salvage’ the Affordable Care Act. Vance’s claim is False.” [PolitiFact, X, 10/1/24]
Zinhle Essamuah, NBC News: “VP DEBATE: Walz mentioned maternal mortality rates in Texas post-abortion bans. We reported last month: the rate of maternal deaths in Texas increased 56% from 2019 to 2022 vs. just 11% nationwide during the same time period.” [Zinhle, X, 10/1/24]
Economic Policy Institute: “Fact: Abortion bans derail reproductive freedom and impact the “bread and butter” economic livelihoods of women and their families.” [Economic Policy Institute, X, 10/1/24]
Greg Sargent, The New Republic: “Vance just claimed that Trump salvaged the ACA. Walz rightly pointed out that Trump tried to destroy the ACA. Vance knows Walz is right. In 2017, Vance attacked the Trump-GOP effort to repeal the ACA as a betrayal of Trump voters.” [Greg Sargent, X, 10/1/24]
Jonathan Cohn, HuffPost: “Literally cannot believe Vance just said Trump tried to repair the ACA with *bipartisan* action. The only bipartisan votes in 2017 were when the likes of McCain, Murkowski joined Democrats to block Republican repeal bills that Trump was trying desperately to pass.” [Jonathan Cohn, X, 10/1/24]
Tim O’Brien, MSNBC: “Vance said, ‘Obamacare was doing disastrously until President Trump came along.’ #VPDebate2024 Under Biden, the number of insured Americans hit a record high, largely thanks to record ACA enrollment.” [Tim O’Brien, X, 10/1/24]
Sahil Kapur, NBC News: “Vance on Obamacare: ‘Donald Trump could’ve destroyed the program. Instead he worked in a bipartisan way to ensure that Americans had access to affordable care.’ This is all false. Trump worked in a partisan way to try and destroy ACA. He simply failed.” [Sahil Kapur, X, 10/1/24]
Dan Diamond, The Washington Post: “Vance: ‘I think that Donald Trump has earned the right to put in place some better health care policies…because he did it successfully the first time’. If Trump had successfully repealed the ACA, as he tried to do, Vance himself warned millions of Americans could lose coverage.” [Dan Diamond, X, 10/1/24]
Larry Levitt, KFF: “Trump did not repeal the ACA, but it was not for lack of trying.” [Larry Levitt, X, 10/1/24]
Chris Hayes, MSNBC: “HE TRIED TO REPEAL THE ACA TWICE I’M GONNA LOSE MY MIND.” [Chris Hayes, X, 10/1/24]