On Tuesday, August 11, 2020, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his vice presidential running mate. Since joining Congress in 2017, Sen. Harris has largely served as a bridge between progressive and moderate Democratic positions and policies. She has made immigration, equal pay and reproductive health rights core planks of her policy proposals. Her current congressional committee assignments include Senate Judiciary, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Intelligence and Budget.

Healthcare consistently ranks as a top priority for voters, and in the midst of an infectious disease pandemic we expect the focus on healthcare to intensify over the coming months. Healthcare also served as a differentiator in the crowded Democratic presidential primary; while all of the candidates supported universal access to health insurance coverage, policy solutions to achieve that goal ranged from creating a single-payer system to maintaining the current employer-based approach while providing a robust public option. As a candidate for president, Sen. Harris’s proposal embraced an eventual “Medicare-for-All” system buoyed by private insurance options and instituted over a 10-year transition period. Vice President Biden’s healthcare plan builds on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by making current premium tax credits more generous and creating a public insurance option available to all Americans.

Although Sen. Harris will ultimately support Vice President Biden’s policies, her record as a prosecutor, the Attorney General of California and as a senator will influence the campaign and decisions made in the White House, if elected on November 3, 2020.