Raleigh, North Carolina –
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday promoted their health care agenda in the battleground state of North Carolina, arguing that Democrats like them would preserve access to health care, while Republicans would reverse the progress made over the last decade and a half.
Fourteen years after former US President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the White House still sees health care as a winning issue during a campaign in which Biden has sometimes found himself on the defensive when it comes to immigration or economy. Republicans have opposed Biden’s signature initiatives to reduce medical costs and have seized opportunities to restrict abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“It’s sick. Now they want, to quote you, to end the ACA, like my predecessor says,” Biden said, referring to former Republican US President Donald Trump. “If that ever happened, we would end a lot of lives too. But we’re not going to let that happen, are we? We’re not going to let that happen.”
North Carolina was Biden’s final stop on a tour of battleground states after his State of the Union address this month, which kicked off a frenetic travel schedule as the Democratic president defends a second term in a likely rematch with Trump. the alleged president. Republican candidate.
The state is also a health care success story for the president. The American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus pandemic recovery measure signed by Biden, included financial incentives for states to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income residents. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, used the money, which amounted to $1.8 billion, to persuade Republican lawmakers to support his plan. More than 600,000 residents are expected to qualify.
Biden and Harris visited hours after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case over access to mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill. The judges seemed inclined to preserve access to medication.
The White House has sought to make mifepristone more available as one of its few opportunities to protect women’s ability to terminate their pregnancies.
Biden and Harris later attended a campaign fundraiser in Raleigh. They have built a significant cash lead over Trump, with $155 million in cash on hand as of mid-March. Trump had 37 million dollars.
Biden’s approval ratings on health care are among the highest on a variety of issues, but he also lags on that front. According to a February poll by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 42 percent of American adults approve of Biden’s proposal. healthcare management, while 55 percent disapprove.
KFF, a health policy research firm, found in its own November poll that 59 percent of American adults trust the Democratic Party to do a better job addressing health care affordability issues. Only 39 percent said the same about Republicans. There was a similar divide in trust when it came to access to mental health care, prescription drug costs and the future of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid.
Trump has never detailed his health care proposals despite campaigning since 2016 on a promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. After Biden landed in North Carolina, Trump denied in a new social media post that he wants to “end the ACA,” even though he had promised to do so last week in Arizona. Trump promised Tuesday, without providing any details, that he would make the Affordable Care Act better, stronger and less expensive.
However, health care has not been a prominent issue in his 2024 campaign, as Trump focuses on immigration, inflation and wars in Europe and the Middle East.
Polls show a close race between Biden and Trump, and Democrats hope to create another potential path to victory in North Carolina.
Although Democrats have failed to win a U.S. Senate seat or a presidential race there since 2008, Trump beat Biden in North Carolina by just 1.3 percentage points in 2020. The White House has repeatedly highlighted federal injections. of funds for transportation, rural broadband and other initiatives. while sending senior administration officials to the state.
Democrats also want to exploit what they see as weaknesses among Republican candidates for state office. For example, the party’s candidates for governor and state school superintendent, Mark Robinson and Michele Morrow, respectively, have a history of making inflammatory comments.
“We’re looking at a statewide Republican slate filled with MAGA extremists that will ultimately hurt Republicans’ chances of winning the state again,” state Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Raleigh, the chamber’s Democratic leader, said Monday. In an interview. “As we get closer to November, I think the independents who are critical to winning the state will be able to see how extreme the Republican ticket is from top to bottom.”
Democrats hope unaffiliated voters, the largest category in North Carolina, will cool to Trump, in part because of concerns that his election along with Robinson and Morrow could cause businesses to question relocating to a state that is currently experiencing an economic boom.
This story has been corrected to show that Biden’s $155 million in cash on hand did not last until mid-March, not until the end of the first quarter.
Associated Press writers Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jill Colvin in New York and Darlene Superville, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.