Subterms
The veteran senator is now part of Joe Biden’s inner circle, and is still fighting his country’s vast inequalities
Read an extract from It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism
by More
Joe Biden attacks Republican ‘dream’ to slash Medicare and Social SecurityPresident makes comments in Florida speech, vowing to safeguard programs ahead of anticipated 2024 re-election campaign Joe Biden amplified his attacks on Republicans over Medicare and Social Security during a visit to Florida on Thursday, arguing that it was the party’s “dream” to slash the federal programs and vowing to be the “nightmare” that stops them.Speaking in Tampa, Biden outlined his administration’s plan to safeguard the popular entitlement programs as part of an ongoing war of words with his Republican opponents that began during his second State of the Union address on Tuesday.Ahead of an anticipated 2024 re-election campaign, the president has seen an opportunity to put Republicans on the defensive on an issue that resonates deeply with voters, and particularly seniors who rely on the programs and are a key part of their base.Joe Biden has steadied the nation – why don’t his polling numbers reflect this? | Robert ReichRead more“I know that a lot of Republicans – their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare,” Biden said, during his remarks at University of Tampa. “If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.”Republicans have flatly rejected the assertion, despite a long record of proposing to do just that. During the midterms, several prominent Republicans opened the door to Medicare and Social Security cuts as part of their effort to reign in the federal budget.Many Republicans have accused Biden of lying about their fiscal agenda. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said this week that cuts to Medicare and Social Security were “off the table” as part of any plan to reduce the nation’s debt.Their objection to the accusation on Tuesday night – loud howls from the chamber and shouts of “liar” – prompted a remarkable back-and-forth during the State of the Union, in which Biden paused to engage his hecklers. “Liar!” screamed the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia.Recalling the exchange, which he referred to as a “spirited debate”, Biden boasted that he had extracted assurances from them that they would not cut the programs. “Granted, I’ll believe it when I see it,” he told the audience on Thursday, as he highlighted individual Republican plans that he said would make the programs more vulnerable to budget cuts.Among them was an idea put forward by the Republican senator Rick Scott of Florida, who proposed sunsetting nearly all federal spending programs after five years. Holding up a pamphlet with the senator’s plan, Biden said subjecting Social Security and Medicare to periodic renewal votes would raise the likelihood of dramatic cuts.“The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years I find to be somewhat outrageous – so outrageous that you might not even believe it,” he said.In a tweet welcoming Biden to Florida, Scott accused the president of “lying to Floridians about Social Security and Medicare” and challenged him to a debate on the issue.Biden enjoys State of the Union reviews as Republicans stoke culture-war fireRead moreResponding to the senator’s pushback, Biden quipped: “Maybe he’s changed his mind; maybe he’s seen the Lord, but he seemed to want a sunset.”Despite vehement protests, Republicans have not yet said how they plan to reduce spending to meet their goal of putting the US on a path toward a balanced budget. Without touching those programs, which alone count for a substantial piece of the nation’s federal budget, it is unclear how they would meet that objective without making painful cuts to defense spending or raising taxes, options many Republicans have categorically ruled out.Biden has appeared to relish sparring with Republicans over the issue, which the White House has long seen as politically potent. Democrats tried to wield the issue against their opponents in the November midterms, but they struggled to rally voters against the hypothetical cuts despite a better-than-anticipated performance.Many Democrats now believe that changed on Tuesday, when Americans saw the debate unfold in primetime. Biden departed the House chamber confident he had bested his political foes, just as he intends to seek a second term. A formal announcement is expected sometime this spring.But recent opinion polls show Biden struggling to unite Americans behind his agenda, with few giving him credit for his legislative accomplishments. Most voters, including a majority of Democrats, say they would prefer someone else to be the party’s standard-bearer in 2024, though a primary challenge has become increasingly unlikely.With 2024 coming into focus, Biden brought his message to Florida, once the consummate presidential battleground that has slipped from Democrats’ reach in recent elections. It is also home to a large retiree population and two of the president’s potential 2024 Republican rivals: Donald Trump, who announced his candidacy shortly after the November midterms, and Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who won re-election by a dominating 19 percentage points in November.The Guardian view on Biden’s State of the Union: deft politics – now to persuade voters | EditorialRead moreTargeting DeSantis, Biden called on the governor to expand Medicaid in the state, estimating an additional 1.1 million Floridians would be eligible for the program.“This isn’t calculus,” Biden said. “The only reason Medicare expansion hasn’t happened here is politics.” He also repeated his calls for Congress to raise taxes on the wealthiest households and corporations as well as to extend a $35 monthly cap on the cost of insulin to all Americans.In a statement ahead of Biden’s visit, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, said the president’s plans to rebuild the economy were “too blissfully out of touch to care”.The visit was the second stop on his post-State of the Union “blitz”, which has seen the president, vice-president and cabinet officials travel the country to promote his administration’s legislative agenda. His first stop was at a union training facility in Wisconsin.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsFloridaUS MedicareRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More
Biden declared victory over big pharma – but is it enough to sway senior voters?The Inflation Reduction Act aims to reduce the cost of drugs, but the law’s limitations may not help the Democrats in the midterms At a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Joe Biden declared nothing less than victory over the pharmaceutical industry.“We beat pharma!” Biden said, leaning into the microphone. “We beat pharma this year, and it mattered. We’re going to change people’s lives.”The president was referring to the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among widely touted provisions to fight the climate crisis and tax big corporations, also aims to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors. The law allows Medicare to begin negotiating with pharmaceutical companies on some expensive drugs – a long-sought goal for activists and the key “victory” that Biden believes he has scored over the powerful pharmaceutical lobby.What Biden did not mention in his speech, however, was that the law also includes limits on those negotiations – meaning analysts believe it may be some time before the scorekeepers decide whether to declare Biden the winner.It also means that the Democrats could have difficulty using the accomplishment in their next big test, the midterm elections, where they hope to win over seniors – at least those who have not decided how they will vote.Biden’s landmark climate and spending bill – what’s in it, and what got cut?Read more“The impact on the election will be if you can convince people over age 60 that they really will be seeing something to help them with their drug costs,” said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University. “But if somebody tells them they are not going to see that until 2026, that’s not as exciting as ‘I really expect this year I’m going to get relief with the bills I have.’”The pharmaceutical part of the IRA law requires the federal government to start negotiating for some expensive drugs covered under Medicare – but not until 2026, and only with 10 retail prescription drugs that year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Another 15 retail drugs will be eligible for negotiation starting the following year, then 35 more in 2028 and 2029, including drugs administered by physicians.The act also requires pharmaceutical companies to pay rebates to Medicare if they increase drug prices faster than inflation; and, beginning in 2025, a $2,000 annual cap that means nobody on Medicare would have to pay more than that amount out of their own pocket.“Despite their limitations, the drug pricing reform provisions of the [act] have the potential to transform the ways in which Medicare pays for drugs, and to provide financial benefits to millions of seniors who have difficulty affording their medications,” Rachel Sachs, a Washington University law professor and expert in health law, wrote in Health Affairs.Biden has tried to make political hay out of the deal to reduce drug costs. He has called out his opponents for not supporting the measures, reminding listeners that all Republicans voted against the Inflation Reduction Act.“For decades, big pharma won – year in, year out – because they own chunks of the Congress – because they had help, like your senior senator, Ron Johnson,” Biden told the crowd in Wisconsin, referring to the Republican lawmaker who is up for re-election this year. Johnson’s opponent, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes, has also criticized the incumbent’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry.But recent polling indicates that despite the drug price “win”, the race is a toss-up. Democrats are favored to retain control of the Senate, but Republicans are favored to take control of the House, according to the most recent modeling from the FiveThirtyEight.Democrats’ struggles could be because voters are less concerned with the pharmaceutical industry than they are other issues. A majority of voters told a recent survey from Politico and Harvard that inflation, the economy and jobs, gun policy, abortion and gas prices all rank ahead of healthcare (at least non-Covid-19 healthcare) in the list of what will affect their decisions in the midterms.The Covid-19 pandemic and surrounding upheaval in recent years “has made people unbelievably short-term in how they think about the issues,” Blendon added.The number of drugs affected by the new law is also very limited. And since the requirements won’t immediately take effect, they could be reversed or softened by a Republican administration, said Simon Haeder, professor of public health at Texas A&M University.“We will really see if it’s a big deal maybe five, 10 years down the line, and the only way this turns into a big deal is if this is a nose or the toes in the door kind of thing and spurs larger changes,” said Haeder.Also, since the healthcare provisions are part of a wider law on climate and corporation taxes, voters may not be aware of what it does about drug prices specifically, Blendon said.Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, argues the healthcare provisions will not make much difference in the midterms. The breakthrough on drug price negotiations will be “subsumed by other broader issues about inflation, crime, immigration, the future of democracy, education and broader healthcare issues that go well beyond the limited negotiation for a small number of drugs.”The key for Democrats in making sure that’s not the case, Blendon argues, is advertising.“If you were working in the White House, you want everything to try to highlight the drug price provisions, particularly in districts with older people,” he said. “If they are aware that something is being done for people over age 60, 65 for drug prices, it will help the Democrats.”AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) is trying to increase awareness of how the law could benefit people over 65, who are eligible for Medicare. The organization has published articles, held town hall meetings and devoted its September monthly bulletin to explaining the law.Leigh Purvis, the director of AARP’s healthcare costs and access, thinks the law could help Democrats with the delays in drug price negotiation requirements, because some parts of it – notably the rebates for inflation, and the cap on insulin payments – take effect next year.“This law is effectively starting very soon, and it’s just a matter of helping people see those changes and recognize them for what they are and what caused them,” Purvis said.TopicsUS politicsPharmaceuticals industryUS MedicarefeaturesReuse this content More
The Guardian health reporter Jessica Glenza steps in for Jonathan Freedland this week. She speaks to Dr Abdul El-Sayed, co-author of a new book, Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide, about why the concept of providing healthcare coverage for all Americans is so politically vexing
How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know
No three words are likely to elicit a more divisive response in Washington than “Medicare for all”. From the outside looking in, some might wonder why any politician – Republican or Democrat – would hesitate to provide universal health coverage to all Americans. The answer goes to the core of American ideas about the role of government and the free market. This week Jessica Glenza speaks to Dr Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and epidemiologist and co-author of a new book, Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide. He also ran for governor of Michigan, where he advocated for universal healthcare. Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More
