WASHINGTON — The candidates for vice president sparred over the guts of health insurance policy Tuesday during their debate, with Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) expanding on Trump’s “concepts of a plan” and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) staunchly defending the Affordable Care Act.
Abortion, of course, was also a big topic, and former President Donald Trump took the opportunity to try to further soften his abortion position on social media while the two vice presidential candidates debated on stage in New York.
Vice presidential debates attract fewer viewers than presidential bouts, and most voters don’t vote for presidential candidates based on their running mates. But this was the last scheduled debate in a race that is a toss-up one month from the final day of voting. What the VP candidates said on health care Tuesday night could help define those policies for the rest of the campaign.
Trump has been vague about his plans for the Affordable Care Act, which he repeatedly sought to repeal while in office. In the presidential debate last month against the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump avoided details and said he had “concepts of a plan.” Since then, Vance has said insurers should be allowed to cover sick people separately from healthier people. That attracted attacks from Democrats, who said Vance’s plan would undermine the ACA’s guarantee that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions.
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.”
Walz responded that the plan Vance described would let insurers attract healthy people into plans while pricing out sick people.
“What Senator Vance just explained might be worse than just a concept,” Walz said. “Because what he explained is pre-Obamacare.”
When the debate turned to the subject of abortion, Trump joined in via the social media site X. Trump’s position on abortion has been difficult to pin down. He has said a six-week abortion ban is too restrictive, but later said he’d vote against a Florida ballot measure to extend access to abortion past six weeks. He thinks abortion policy should be left to states, but refused to say whether he would veto a federal abortion ban during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
That changed on Tuesday night.
“EVERYONE KNOWS I WOULD NOT SUPPORT A FEDERAL ABORTION BAN, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND WOULD, IN FACT, VETO IT, BECAUSE IT IS UP TO THE STATES TO DECIDE.” Trump announced on X.
Vance struck a more diplomatic tone during the vice presidential debate. He said Republicans need to earn back the trust of voters on the issue or reproductive rights. He also denied having supported a national ban on abortion — he did support a national ban.
“I want us as a Republican Party to be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word,” Vance said. “I want us to support fertility treatments. I want us to make it easier for moms to afford to have babies.”
Drug pricing and mental health also came up.
The Inflation Reduction Act included easy-to-understand drug benefits for seniors that are broadly popular with voters in both parties.
And no Republicans voted for it.
Yet, it’s been surprisingly difficult for Democrats to claim credit for the accomplishment. Walz stressed that Democrats for the first time have allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices. However, Vance also claimed drug pricing wins during Trump’s time in office. He said drug prices rose only 1.5% during the Trump administration compared to 7% during the time that Harris has been vice president.
Mental health emerged from a question about gun control policy. “We have a mental health crisis in this country that I really think we need to get to the root causes of,” Vance said, saying it was a “big piece” of the gun violence, and also said gun crime is worse in cities. Walz said that in his state, death by suicide with firearms is more common in rural areas. He also cautioned against stigmatizing mental health.
“Just because you have a mental health issue doesn’t mean you are violent,” he said. “We start looking for a scapegoat. Sometimes it’s just the guns.”