Democratic Party of Door County

Public Policy for Public Good

Editor: Ron Maclean

Reproductive Rights & Health Care
Project 2025 proposals will:

Restrict Reproductive Rights and Access to Healthcare

Despite the majority of Americans supporting comprehensive health care and reproductive freedom, Project 2025 would prefer a far different reality. Their attacks would undermine Medicare, keep prescription drug prices high, and restrict access to reproductive care.

Below is “How They’d Do It.” (Click a topic for the details)

Project 2025 would undo Medicare’s new ability to negotiate lower prescription prices for seniors.
Medicare’s new ability to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors, established through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), will be transformative for millions of seniors in the United States.
{A} Project 2025 would weaponize the long-dormant Comstock Act to try and make the delivery of medication abortion by mail illegal. Originally passed in the 19th century to restrict the types of things that could be mailed, the Comstock Act is, today, in District Court Judge Robert Chambers’ own words: a “widely abrogated 19th century statute.” Despite the DOJ, the courts, and Congress already making clear that the Comstock Act does not apply to legal abortion care, Project 2025 plans to weaponize the DOJ and resurrect this Act to ban nationwide medication abortion access.
While Project 2025’s plan is to specifically instruct Congress to repeal this part of the IRA, they could also easily advise the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop defending Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices in courts, where the program currently faces numerous challenges.
Project 2025’s attacks on Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices would negatively impact millions of elderly Americans, particularly elderly people of color and those with low incomes.
From Mandate for Leadership p. 465
Project 2025 would revoke approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), criminalize mailing medication abortion, or even enlist the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of their anti-abortion efforts.
Over two decades of medical practice show that mifepristone — medication abortion — is safe and effective. In fact, just last year, nearly two-thirds of all pregnant people relied on medication abortion for their abortion care. This is one of the last lifelines for millions of pregnant people across the United States, as many state governments are ramping up attacks. The anti-abortion extremists behind Project 2025, not content with merely overturning Roe v. Wade, want to attack access to medication abortion nationwide by any means necessary.
{A} Project 2025 would weaponize the long-dormant Comstock Act to try and make the delivery of medication abortion by mail illegal. Originally passed in the 19th century to restrict the types of things that could be mailed, the Comstock Act is, today, in District Court Judge Robert Chambers’ own words: a “widely abrogated 19th century statute.” Despite the DOJ, the courts, and Congress already making clear that the Comstock Act does not apply to legal abortion care, Project 2025 plans to weaponize the DOJ and resurrect this Act to ban nationwide medication abortion access.
{B} Project 2025 would have the FDA reverse approval of this safe and effective medication. Reversing federal approval of medication abortion could deprive people of essential health care, even in states where abortion remains legal. In states where abortion is banned or restricted, this would further subject people to the whims of state legislatures, many of which have actively pushed or enacted abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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for {C} IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “A bare-minimum policy of limiting abortion pills to the pre-2016 policy of 49 days gestation, returning to the pre-2021 in- person dispensing requirement, and returning to requiring prescribers to report all serious adverse events, not just deaths, to the drug sponsor would increase women’s health and safety.:” DIRECT FROM “Mandate for Leadership” p.459 and for {A} see p 562 for {B} see p 458
Under the guise of allowing greater choice, Project 2025 would push policies that favor private, worse-performing alternatives to Medicare.
While many of Project 2025’s plans for Medicare require congressional action, they also encourage a future administration to use all possible levers, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), to alter this critical program however they can. Several of their proposals would push people towards private Medicare alternatives, which are not real alternatives at all — with reports showing that “Medicare Advantage plans threaten rural hospitals and patients” and misled people into signing up for them. While Project 2025 may pitch these Medicare ‘reforms’ as encouraging consumer choice, in reality they will leave seniors worse off across the country — putting the health of many of the 33 million people enrolled in traditional Medicare at risk.
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DIRECT FROM “Mandate for Leadership” p. 463
Project 2025 would remove protections the Biden administration put in place post-Dobbs to protect the personal information of people who receive reproductive care.
In the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration issued HIPAA guidance to “ensure doctors and other medical providers and health plans know that, with limited exceptions, they are not required – and in many cases, are not permitted – to disclose patients’ private information, including to law enforcement.” The administration later finalized a rule to shield the medical records of patients from criminal investigations if they cross state lines to seek an abortion where it is legal. Even as extremists in Texas actively try to use the courts to access information about people receiving abortions out of state, Project 2025 claims that the Biden administration’s privacy guidance is “fear mongering” and would have a future administration withdraw it. As more states move to pass increasingly severe efforts to criminalize abortion, this would put medical providers and all pregnant people at increased risk.
Even as extremists in Texas actively try to use the courts to access information about people receiving abortions out of state, Project 2025 claims that the Biden administration’s privacy guidance is “fear mongering” and would have a future administration withdraw it. As more states move to pass increasingly severe efforts to criminalize abortion, this would put medical providers and all pregnant people at increased risk.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “OCR should withdraw its Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)86 guidance on abortion. OCR should withdraw its June 2022 guidance87 that purports to address patient privacy concerns following the Dobbs decision but is actually a politicized statement in favor of abortion and against Dobbs.”
DIRECT FROM “Mandate for Leadership” p. 497

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