WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than 900,000 Americans would have saved $3,000 a year on their prescription medications under Vice President Kamala Harris’ plan to cap out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 annually for patients with private insurance, were such a policy in place in 2022, according to new Public Citizen research. But unless cost caps are passed alongside measures to cut prescription drug prices, there is a risk of shifting costs onto taxpayers. 

The Harris proposal is an extension of the cap established by the Inflation Reduction Act for Medicare Part D patients, which has saved 1.5 million seniors nearly $1 billion in the first half of this year alone.

Roughly 30% of Americans do not take medications as prescribed due to high drug costs. Many are cutting pills in half, skipping doses, not filling prescriptions and taking over-the-counter-drugs in lieu of their prescribed meds.

Public Citizen researchers found patients would have saved nearly $3 billion in 2022 if Harris’ proposed cap were in place that year. Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman says this data proves Harris’ plan is not only feasible but a crucial first step to help Americans afford their medications.

“No one should ever have to choose between taking their medicine and putting food on the table,” said Weissman. “Vice President Harris is working to bring relief to patients who are struggling to afford to care for themselves as part of her bigger plan to lower drug costs. This proposed cap must work in tandem with a bigger, bolder congressional effort to stop pharmaceutical companies from price gouging treatments. We cannot let Big Pharma continue to take advantage of American patients and put more strain on our healthcare system.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Vice President Kamala Harris announced plans to provide long-term care benefits through Medicare to seniors in their own homes. Currently, seniors can only use Medicare for limited post acute care and must rely on Medicaid for longer-term care. The availability of home-based care through Medicaid varies by state. 

Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert released the following statement: 

“Improving and expanding Medicare is job one in order to fix our broken health care system. Home health expansion through Medicare is a smart and desperately needed place to start. It would provide relief for families across America struggling to take care of their loved ones. 

“This important expansion would finally allow Medicare to cover crucial services where many beneficiaries would prefer to receive them—in the safety and comfort of their homes. Such an expansion would lay the groundwork for even further improvements and expansions to Medicare including hearing, dental and vision services. A low out-of-pocket cap on medical expenses would ensure seniors can afford to get the care they need, and by reigning in Medicare Advantage overpayments, we could fund many of these priorities. 

“We must continue to expand the availability of Medicare by lowering the qualifying age, so we can finally build a health care system that ensures that every American can get the care they need when they need it without going bankrupt.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — At Tuesday’s Vice Presidential debate, J.D. Vance will likely make a number of claims about trade policy and American jobs that he has been consistently making on the campaign trail. Vance has embraced populist rhetoric on trade to connect with voters’ real frustrations related to the hollowing out of the manufacturing sector and increased income inequality from past corporate-dominated trade deals, but many of his claims are disingenuous or flat out wrong. 

Some of Vance’s claims about trade and jobs to look out for: 

Vance’s Anticipated False Claim: Vice President Harris voted to keep the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in place when Trump renegotiated it. 

Reality: Vance has continued to make this claim, which has earned him four pinocchios by a Washington Post fact check. As a Senator, Vice President Harris voted against the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) because she believed the deal wasn’t strong enough on climate protections to justify her vote. Prior to that vote, she said she would not have supported the original NAFTA because it didn’t do enough to protect American workers. More recently, Vice President Harris said that the USMCA “made it far too easy for a major auto company like Stellantis to break their word to workers by outsourcing American jobs.”

Vance’s Anticipated False Claim: Trump’s USMCA solved the issue of U.S. jobs going to Mexico. 

Reality: The U.S.-Mexico trade deficit has gone up since the implementation of the USMCA, not down. American companies continued outsourcing jobs to Mexico as the USMCA went into law. In one case, a manufacturer did so only months after receiving $10 million in COVID-19 relief money from the Trump Administration. In another case, just a year after the USMCA took effect, an auto parts manufacturer controlled by Trump’s then Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross outsourced 300 jobs to Mexico. In the first six months of 2020, the DOL approved 15 petitions for trade assistance related to auto parts factories moving to Mexico.

Vance’s Anticipated False Claim: NAFTA was a “Democrat” trade deal. 

Reality: NAFTA was negotiated by a Republican President, George Bush. When Congress voted on the deal, the majority of Democrats in Congress voted against it, and the majority of Republicans voted for it.

Vance’s Anticipated False Claim: Key pieces of Biden administration legislation, like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), help China and sent a lot of jobs to China. 

Reality: The Chinese government is furious about the IRA and has actually initiated a dispute against the United States at the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing that the legislation violates WTO rules by preferencing and protecting U.S. jobs. Last year, Vice President Harris helped bring the trade deficit with China to its lowest point in 15 years. Under Trump’s presidency, it hit the highest level in U.S. history. The IRA has had such a big impact that a number of Congressional Republicans have been urging Trump and Vance to not follow through on their threat to gut the IRA’s tax credits because they are creating jobs in their districts.

Vance’s Anticipated False Claim:The Biden administration protected green energy jobs at the expense of American jobs. Trump protected American jobs.

Reality: Trump made empty promises to protect manufacturing jobs, while the Biden-Harris administration has made real investments to create and support manufacturing jobs. While in office, for instance, Trump promised workers in Lordstown, Ohio that he would save their jobs from being outsourced to Mexico. But when the last of over 4,000 of those jobs went to Mexico under his watch, he did nothing. Thanks to the historic investments into clean energy manufacturing that Vice President Harris has helped put in place, over 1,000 auto jobs have come back to Lordstown in the form of EV and battery manufacturing. These jobs are part of massive manufacturing investments that are going disproportionately to towns that have lost jobs in the past. 

Vance’s Anticipated False Claim: The Biden administration adopted “the Donald Trump agenda” with respect to tariffs.

Reality: The Biden-Harris administration has continued to use tariffs in strategic industries to counter unfair trade practices by China, and actually strengthened them after a mandatory 4-year review found weaknesses regarding electric vehicle supply chains and other green energy products. Unlike Trump, the Biden-Harris administration understands that, while tariffs are a strategic tool, they must be matched with real investments in domestic manufacturing, like those in the IRA, in order to protect jobs.

Contact: Emily Leach, eleach@citizen.org 

Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, Donald Trump appeared to promote a family cryptocurrency project on the social media platform he owns, Truth Social.

Robert Weissman, Public Citizen co-president, said:

“The Scammer-in-Chief is at it again.

“Donald Trump and his family are promoting a family cryptocurrency project, once again trying to exploit his public profile for personal gain.

“It’s bad enough that Trump is luring people — primarily his own supporters — into a rip-off, Ponzi-scheme business. It’s pathetic and outrageous that he tries to channel people’s legitimate anger against banks and financial elites into his own personal grift.

“Worst of all, campaign support from Crypto Bros and, now, an opportunity to scam everyday Americans have led Trump to flip his position on the industry, with dangerous potential consequences if he’s elected.”