Hillary Clinton will roll out her proposed changes to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, focusing lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
While the Democratic front-runner has long been a supporter of Obamacare, dating back to the 1990s, she has had her own, somewhat differing views on healthcare reform. Her plan, which she will introduce at a community forum in Iowa on Tuesday, will showcase some of those differences.
In the run-up to Clinton’s healthcare event, her campaign has complained that “price gouging … in the specialty drug market is outrageous” and said that would soon lay out a plan to tackle it.
Additionally, Clinton has committed to changing the law’s small business mandate, which requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health insurance or pay a penalty fee. In a February 2014 speech she spoke of the perils of Obamacare forcing businesses to hire employees part-time, rather than full time, in order to ensure that they don’t have to pay extra for healthcare allowances.
“I think we are on the right track in many respects [in regards to Obamacare] but I would be the first to say if things aren’t working then we need people of good faith to come together and make evidence-based changes,” she said in the speech.
But Clinton still defends the law from Republican critics who would repeal it, saying healthcare reform “is going to be challenging and I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bath.”
Clinton will spend the next three days emphasizing her close connections to the Obama administration at campaign stops in Louisiana, Arkansas and Iowa.
