There’s a reason health care has come up so often: It’s been a driving force in elections for more than a decade. Hostility to President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, Obamacare, spawned the Tea Party movement and a wave of conservative support that helped Republicans take the House of Representatives in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016.
But the political advantages have flipped in recent years: Biden successfully attacked Trump’s COVID-19 response ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and the fight over abortion rights helped Democrats retake the House of Representatives in 2022.
Polls show health care remains a key priority for voters this year: In a February survey, about 80% of voters said affordability was a “very important” concern. vote According to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy group.
Biden and Trump spoke about health care:
When asked about abortion, perhaps Democrats’ biggest political advantage this year, Biden couldn’t offer a coherent answer. He accused Trump of trying to strip away constitutional abortion rights and noted that three Supreme Court appointments have helped overturn constitutional rulings. Roe v. Wade Two years ago, Biden said that as a result, women across the country were suffering as they sought basic health care.
Trump countered that his Supreme Court appointments helped overturn provisions of the Constitution and then successfully pushed the abortion issue onto the states. egg.
But the former president has also had trouble speaking about the issue, including inaccurately claiming that the Supreme Court “approved the abortion pill.” The court did not rule on the legality of mifepristone, instead dismissing a lawsuit that would have restricted the drug, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.
Trump also accused Biden of supporting abortion up to birth, to which Biden responded, “You’re lying. That’s just not true.” Trump He made other claims that medical groups have said are false. [Democrats] “The biggest problem they have is the radicalism of taking a child’s life at eight months, nine months, even just after birth,” Trump said. Killing a person after birth is illegal.
Biden, in particular, His work to lower drug pricesHe has repeatedly brought up the issue, sometimes unprompted, and the White House sees this as an advantage for Biden given years of polling showing Americans are unhappy with high prescription drug prices and a series of drug pricing changes included in Democrats’ landmark 2022 legislation, the Stop Inflation Act.
The legislation includes changes that give Medicare the power to negotiate directly with drug companies, cap out-of-pocket costs for seniors and impose penalties on drug companies that raise drug prices faster than the rate of inflation.
“Repealing the Contract with Inflation Act would mean higher costs for prescription drugs and many other areas,” Neera Tanden, the president’s domestic policy adviser, said in a speech Wednesday to the left-leaning Center for American Progress think tank, noting that Republicans have targeted the law.
But during the debate, Biden struggled to communicate what his administration had actually done. At one point he claimed, “We finally won Medicare,” when he probably meant, “We finally won the drug companies,” a gaffe meant to mock Trump. The president at one point claimed he had lowered the cost of insulin to “$15” a dose, but his administration Actually supervised the effort Limiting insulin copays for most Americans to $35 per month.
Trump Appearing frustrated by Biden’s comments on drug prices, the former president claimed the current president was wrongly taking credit for it. “I invented insulin for seniors,” Trump said.
There is some truth to Trump’s argument: His administration has pursued lower insulin costs, including through a Medicare pilot program, but Biden’s team has gone further, enshrining insulin cost cuts into law.
of KFF Poll The poll also found that Obamacare has become more popular since President Trump and Republicans tried to repeal it in 2017, with six in 10 Americans now supporting the plan. They now have a more positive view of the law, and Biden used that goodwill to his advantage during the debate. He noted that tens of millions of people have health insurance thanks to the law.
As expected, Biden criticized Trump’s previous efforts to weaken or replace Obamacare and accused him of targeting Americans’ health care, which provides health insurance to 45 million people nationwide. Through health insurance ACA insurance marketplaces and Medicaid expansion; According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: — This is more than triple the number of people enrolled in 2014.
Biden is being credited with expanding enrollment aid that was cut by President Trump.
Trump did not directly respond to Biden’s comments. Trump has been a contradictory candidate, saying he will never give up on repealing the health care law while at the same time denying that he is running on a platform of repealing the ACA.
The first health topic of the debate was coronavirus, an issue that animated the 2020 election. Trump criticized Biden for making vaccinations mandatory, It has been pointed out that the number of people who have died from COVID-19 has increased under the Biden administration. Biden claims Trump told Americans to drink bleach, but that’s a misconception President Trump has suggested considering injecting disinfectant into the lungs.
The commentary comes as the United States grapples with the threat of avian flu outbreaks and the growing risk of dengue fever.
of As the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear, candidates have vastly different views on how to respond to a national health crisis.
While Trump shifted the blame to states and publicly criticized the role of federal agencies, Biden took office the following year and coordinated a government-wide response, instituting mask and vaccine mandates.
In a recent interview with Time magazine, Trump said: Probably going to break up The White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy was established by Biden.
Current projections suggest Medicare will run out of funds by 2036, and its solvency was a constant topic throughout the debate.
Biden, in his closing arguments, highlighted how he has saved Medicare billions of dollars by cutting drug costs and tried to tout his efforts to protect the program throughout the debate. Biden has previously said he wants to raise taxes on high-income earners to fund the program, which Americans over 65 rely on for health insurance. And he mentioned during the debate that such a tax would protect health care programs.
In contrast, Trump raised premiums for high-income earners but signed tax cuts that depleted Medicare funding and eliminated a commission set up to rein in Medicare spending. During the debate, Trump argued that Biden was hurting Medicare by allowing immigrants into the country, so that over time, immigrants who are legally in the country can become eligible for Medicare.
Some Republicans have long Raising the Medicare eligibility age to make the system more solvent, an unpopular idea offered by neither candidate.
meanwhile More than 1 in 5 people American Many immigrants do not qualify for Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income and disabled people, but the program was barely mentioned during the debate, except when Trump argued that immigrants are draining funds from the program. Most immigrants must wait five years before they can qualify for Medicaid.
But the candidates’ approaches to the program differ dramatically. Trump has previously supported adding work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Biden would also convert Medicaid funding into block grants to states. He reversed a Trump effort to put work requirements on Medicaid and encouraged an expansion of coverage aimed at eliminating disparities.
