The Healthcare Policies of the November 2026 Candidates
Recent polls show that healthcare costs are a top affordability concern for American adults and that a large majority of adults, 90% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans, support a fundamental redesign or major changes to our healthcare system. Across states, political parties, and different types of office, politicians and constituents hold different views on healthcare policies and support different proposals. Various stakeholders such as patients, physicians, nurses, veterans, employers, and industry groups could potentially benefit from access to data on how their representatives’ views align with their own. There is no systematic, openly available database and analysis of these views. We sought to create the first systematic, openly available database and analysis of the healthcare policies and proposals of the leading candidates in the November 2026 elections and beyond.
Almost every candidate for the November 2026 elections mentions healthcare on their campaign website, but Democrats and Republicans differ in the number of issues they discuss and their policies on the issues, with a few areas of agreement including drug pricing, mental health, and substance use. There appears to be a significant need for novel policy proposals that can bridge the gap between the concerns of the electorate focused on affordability and significant reform and the limited menu of policy responses proposed by political candidates.