WASHINGTON — In a far-ranging debate that touched on everything from border control issues to TikTok, Republican presidential candidates could not escape hotly contested health care cost issues.
The second GOP primary debate, still missing lead candidate Donald Trump, spanned drug prices, the opioid crisis, gender affirming care, and even the notion to resurrect Obamacare repeal attempts.
That latter question went to former Vice President Mike Pence, who suggested he’d be ready to peel back Affordable Care Act authorities in the name of states’ rights.
“It’s my intention to make the federal government smaller by returning to the states those resources and programs that are rightfully theirs,” he told the California audience. “That means all Obamacare funding, all housing funding, all HHS funding, all of it goes back to the states.”
Pence is currently polling leagues behind Trump and several of his rivals including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former North Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
During the debate, Haley quickly picked up the mantle to lament high health care costs, citing one of her mother’s hospital stays. She pledged to probe “from the insurance company to the hospitals, to the doctor’s offices, to the [pharmacy benefit managers] to the pharmaceutical companies, we will make it all transparent.”
Moderators also questioned candidates about the fentanyl crisis, starting with a question directed at former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy, who has surged ahead of rivals in New Hampshire polls, though he is still a far cry from Trump’s polling figures.
Ramaswamy likened fentanyl-infused drugs to “bioterrorism” but also argued that the country’s opioid crisis is inextricably linked with mental health care issues.
“We have to bring back mental health care in this country, not with pumping pharmaceuticals, but with faith-based approaches that restore purpose and meaning in the next generation of Americans,” said the former biotechnology executive whose company, Roivant, sought to tackle Alzheimer’s disease with a pill that ultimately failed clinical trials.