Clinton vs. Trump: 16 Quotes on Healthcare From the Presidential Candidates

By Staff for Becker’s Hospital Review

The 2016 presidential campaigns are underway, pitting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton against Republican candidate Donald Trump. Both have spoken on what their presidencies would bring to the U.S. healthcare system.

Here are eight healthcare quotes from Ms. Clinton:

1. After a woman spoke about her daughter receiving cancer treatment due to the ACA during a speaking engagement at Grand View University, as reported by CBS News, Ms. Clinton said, “I want you to understand why I am fighting so hard for the Affordable Care Act…I don’t want it repealed, I don’t want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate. I don’t want us to end up in gridlock. People can’t wait!”

2. In a statement reported in The Hill, Ms. Clinton doubled down on her promise to crack down on health insurance companies, saying, “As we see more consolidation in healthcare, among both providers and insurers, I’m worried that the balance of power is moving too far away from consumers.”

She also wrote, “These mergers should be scrutinized very closely with an eye to preventing the undue concentration that they appear to create…The evidence from careful studies shows that too often the companies end up pocketing profits rather than passing savings to consumers.”

3. When asked about whether undocumented workers should have access to healthcare insurance in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Ms. Clinton responded, “If they can afford it, they should be able to go into the marketplace and buy it. But it is not going to apply to people who are in need of subsidies in order to afford that because the subsidies question has to be worked out in comprehensive immigration reform. And what I do want to see is that we have more options for undocumented people to be able to get the healthcare they need.”

4. “What we have to do, I think, is defend the Affordable Care Act and fix it,” Ms. Clinton said in a campaign video as reported by The Street, “And [Valeant Pharmaceuticals] is one of these companies that is absolutely gouging American consumers and patients…I’m going after them; we are going to stop this. This is predatory pricing.”

5. “More than 20 percent of all American women have used Planned Parenthood. Make no mistake, it is under brutal attack everywhere that Republicans are in charge,” said Ms. Clinton on a campaign stop at the University of Nevada earlier this year before the state’s democratic caucus, according to KOLOTV.

6. “Yes, we’ve cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive healthcare and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed,” Ms. Clinton said at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit in New York City and reported in The Christian Post.

7. At a Democratic Town Hall in 2016 hosted by CNN, Ms. Clinton spoke on end-of-life care: “We need to have a conversation in our country. There are states that are moving to open up the opportunity without criminal liability for people to make this decision, in consultation with their families, even with medical professionals. It is a crucial issue that people deserve to understand from their own ethical, religious, faith-based perspective. I want, as president, to try to catalyze that debate because this is going to become an issue more and more often. I don’t have any easy or glib answer for you. I would want to really immerse myself in the ethical writings, the health writings, the scientific writings, the religious writings. We have to be sure that nobody is coerced, nobody is under duress. And that is a difficult line to draw.”

8. “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and vaccines work,” Ms. Clinton Tweeted, as reported inUSA Today.

Here are eight memorable healthcare quotes Mr. Trump has said over the years:

1. At an American Airlines Center in Dallas last year, Mr. Trump said, “Obamacare. We’re going to repeal it, we’re going to replace it, get something great. Repeal it, replace it, get something great!”

2. During his June 2015 presidential announcement speech, Mr. Trump said, “But Obamacare kicks in in 2016. Really big league. It is going to be amazingly destructive. Doctors are quitting. I have a friend who’s a doctor, and he said to me the other day, ‘Donald, I never saw anything like it. I have more accountants than I have nurses.’ It’s a disaster. My patients are beside themselves. They had a plan that was good. They have no plan now.”

3. In September 2014, Mr. Trump tweeted, “I’m not against vaccinations for your children, I’m against them in one massive dose. Spread them out over a period of time & autism will drop!”

4. Mr. Trump told The Hill the federal government should not play a huge role in healthcare regulation. He said, “The only way the government should be involved, they have to make sure those companies are financially strong, so that if they have catastrophic events or they have a miscalculation, they have plenty of money. Other than that, it’s private.”

5. In a 1999 interview with Larry King Live, Mr. Trump took a different stance, saying, “If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s all over. I mean, it’s no good. So I’m very liberal when it comes to healthcare. I believe in universal healthcare. I believe in whatever it takes to make people well and better.”

6. In an interview on “60 Minutes,” Scott Pelley asked Mr. Trump about his plans to fix the healthcare system.

“There’s many different ways, by the way. Everybody’s got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say because a lot of times they say, ‘No, no, the lower 25 percent that can’t afford private’… I am going to take care of everybody. I don’t care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

7. When Mr. Pelley asked Mr. Trump how his health law would care for the uninsured, Mr. Trump said, “the government’s gonna pay for it. But we’re going to save so much money on the other side. But for the most it’s going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies and they can have their doctors, they can have plans, they can have everything.”

8. At a Republican rally in New Hampshire in February, Mr. Trump said negotiating with pharmaceutical companies could reap huge savings, according to Fortune.

The candidate said, “Because the drug companies have an unbelievable lobby. And these guys that run for office, that are on my left and right and plenty of others, they’re all taken care of by the drug companies. And they’re never going to put out competitive bidding. So I said to myself wow, let me do some numbers. If we competitively bid, drugs in the United States, we can save as much as $300 billion a year.”