trump - I have it all ready I have it all ready

Phillip Bump...

”During the ABC town hall, Trump was asked about a mask mandate and why he doesn't wear one.

His responses?
- Biden didn't implement a mandate
- Waiters don't like masks
- Experts used to say no one should wear them”

trump just now..

”Thank you for the great reviews of the @abc News show last night!”

ABC 6

PHILADELPHIA -- ABC News fact checked the claims made by President Donald Trump in a televised town hall on ABC Tuesday night.

President Donald Trump to face uncommitted voters in ABC News town hall event in Philadelphia

THE ECONOMY AND TAXES


Wall Street does not represent Main Street

TRUMP'S CLAIM: Trump touted the success of the stock market, which has rallied after early coronavirus losses in March, as proof that Americans are "doing better than they were doing before the pandemic came."

FACT CHECK: Trump's claim wrongly suggests Wall Street is a strong indicator of how well Main Street is doing.

"Look, we're having a tremendous thing in the stock market, and that's good for everybody," Trump said during the town hall.

"Stocks are owned by everybody," he said. "I mean, you know, they talk about the stock market is so good. That's 401(k)s."

Trump claimed the benefits of the stock market directly benefit everyone, when in fact the vast majority of stocks are owned by the rich. The wealthiest top 10% of American households own over 80% of stocks, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, and almost half of U.S. households own any stock at all, including 401(k)s, according to the Survey of Consumer Finances.

Meanwhile, there are other indicators that more clearly paint a picture of Americans' economic situation as a result of the coronavirus, even as the stock market excels. The unemployment rate skyrocketed from around 3% pre-pandemic to nearly 15% in April. It now sits at 8.4%, meaning more than half of the Americans who lost their jobs are still out of work. Consumer confidence is also down - a measure that show Main Street is struggling even if Wall Street is staying afloat.

Trump misrepresents impact of Biden's tax plan

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "If you look at his policies ... he wants to raise everybody's taxes."

FACT CHECK: The Democratic nominee for president, former Vice President Joe Biden, has said he wants to raise taxes on high earners.

When asked about his tax plan in August, former Vice President Joe Biden told "World News Tonight" Anchor David Muir," "I will raise taxes for anybody making over $400,000."

Biden added, "no new taxes" would be levied for anyone making under $400,000.

However, according to an analysis by the nonprofit Tax Policy Foundation, under Biden's plan, taxes do appear to increase by a small amount across the board. But 93% of increases would be shouldered by the top quintile of taxpayers, according to the analysis.

The Tax Policy Foundation found that the Biden tax plan "would lead to 7.8 percent less after-tax income for the top 1 percent of taxpayers, 1.1 percent lower after-tax income for the top 5 percent, and around 0.6 percent less after-tax income for other income quintiles."

COVID-19


Trump falsely states that more testing accounts for US coronavirus rate

TRUMP'S CLAIM: Stephanopoulos noted that the United States had just 4% of the world's population but more than 20% of its COVID-19 cases and more than 20% of its COVID-19 deaths. Trump replied: "Well, we have 20% of the cases because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn't do testing you wouldn't have cases. You would have very few cases."

FACT CHECK: While the U.S. has conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country, Trump is incorrect to say that the level of testing accounts for the country's proportionately higher number of confirmed cases, which he has repeatedly claimed for months.

Fundamentally, cases of COVID-19 exist in a population whether or not testing picks them up.

More testing will, of course, identify more cases.

But according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there are at least several countries that have conducted more testing per capita than the U.S., but also have fewer cases per capita than the U.S. does - such as Australia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Those figures reflect all-time averages of daily tests conducted per capita -- and the daily percentage of tests that come back positive, which is known as the "positivity rate" or the "percent positive rate."

Despite having one of the highest rates of tests per capita, the U.S. faces the largest outbreak in the world and new cases continue to trend upward in many states. The percent positivity in the U.S. remains high at 8%, when other countries with high testing figures report a significantly lower percent positivity rate, according to Johns Hopkins.

Trump is mistaken to suggest the higher reported rate of cases in the United States is purely a result of the increased testing.

Trump cites coronavirus 'excess mortality,' an unreliable international comparison

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We're starting to get very good marks if you look at what we've done compared to other countries with the excess mortality, the excess mortality rate." // "Excess mortality rate -- it's compared to Europe. Compared to other places, it's about 25% better. In one case, it's over 60% better. And we also have a very big country -- you know, this is -- we're talking about a lot bigger than most countries. "

FACT CHECK: "Excess mortality" is the number of total deaths in a period of time compared with the number of expected deaths.

It's a poor comparison to make, since it doesn't reflect differences in demographics, population density and the state of the pandemic in each place.

The available data is poor, but using the midpoint of an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and EuropeMOMO data adjusted for population -- the latter of which is missing large parts of Europe -- the rate is about the same for the United State and Europe, according to an analysis by FactCheck.org.

Another source, the "Human Mortality Database," shows that Europe's rate -- not adjusted for population -- is 32% higher, but accounting for population, it's actually 32% lower, according to the FactCheck.org analysis.

Due to the unavailability of strong data, demographic differences, uneven timing of outbreaks, and other factors, Trump's comparison is misconstrued.

Trump overly optimistic on COVID-19 vaccine timing, exaggerates availability

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We're very close to having a vaccine. ... We're within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks but we think we have it."

FACT CHECK: Trump's timeline is overly optimistic and exaggerates how soon most Americans will be able to get vaccinated.

Several potential COVID-19 vaccines are currently going through phase III of trials, with pharmaceutical companies enrolling tens of thousands of participants to test the vaccines' safety and efficacy before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve their general use.

Top U.S. government public health officials and other experts have said that it's possible if everything goes well -- but unlikely -- that vaccine trials will have enough clear and compelling data will be available by the end of October or beginning of November. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's foremost infectious disease expert, has said he thinks there will be a "safe and effective vaccine" by "the end of this calendar year."

But even once that data becomes available for one or more of the vaccines, it will still need to be reviewed by the FDA and an independent advisory committee.

At that point, if the FDA determines the data shows the vaccine is safe and effective, it's possible the agency will grant approval for its use, either in a limited manner with an "emergency use authorization," or for more broad use. At that point, the vaccine is expected to be first given to high-priority groups, like health care workers or those living in nursing homes. It will take months before the wider U.S. general population receives it, according to public health officials.

Trump is wrong to suggest there is no consensus on wearing masks

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "People don't want to wear masks. There are a lot of people [who] think the masks are not good."

FACT CHECK: This view does not reflect the scientific consensus.

The recommendation to wear a mask is now almost unanimous among health experts, including some of the president's own appointees, who have all been very vocal in encouraging the American people to wear masks to curtail the spread of the disease.

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have issued statements urging people to wear masks in public settings.

"There are people that don't think masks are good," Trump said, prompting Stephanopoulos to ask, "Who are those people?"

"Waiters," Trump said. "They come over and they serve you, and they have a mask. They're playing with the mask, so the mask is over and they're touching it, and then they're touching the plate. That can't be good."

But researchers from Stanford University found the opposite.

"Wearing a mask reminds people to continue to be cautious," they said. "With a mask on, you actually touch your face less."

In an interview last month on ABC News' "World News Tonight," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said "a universal wearing of masks is one of five or six things that are very important in preventing the upsurge in infection."

"We know that during the first wave of the pandemic, those countries that implemented masking early were more successful than others at reducing the spread of the virus," the Stanford researchers wrote.

Duke University researchers have also concluded that "if 95 percent of people wear cloth masks when within 6 feet of other people in public, it will reduce COVID-19 transmission by at least 30 percent."

Trump noted that health experts had originally recommended against wearing a mask -- but his claim was misleading.

"If you look at Dr. Fauci's original statement, you look at a lot of people -- CDC -- they said very strongly, George, [they said], 'Don't wear masks,'" Trump said. "Then all of a sudden, they went to 'wear masks.'"

At the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC and the WHO, as well as Fauci and other top experts, initially discouraged wearing masks because of concerns that masks and other personal protective equipment were in short supply for health care workers who needed them.

While Fauci mainly cited the need to conserve masks, he did say in an interview with "60 Minutes" that wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences, such as leading people to touch their face more often to adjust them, spreading germs from their hands.

In early April, the CDC changed its recommendation about face coverings for the general public, based on evidence that a significant number of people who were asymptomatic or not yet feeling sick were transmitting the virus.

Trump claims he didn't 'downplay' COVID-19 -- despite admitting to having done just that

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "I didn't downplay it. I, actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action. My action was very strong."

FACT CHECK: During the town hall, Trump said he "didn't downplay" the virus -- when in fact, he has admitted to just that.

"I wanted to always play it down," Trump said in a March 19 interview with veteran journalist Bob Woodward, according to CNN, which obtained an audio recording of the interview, and The Washington Post. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

When the audio was first played last week, a reporter asked if he had misled the public in order to reduce panic.

"I think if you said, 'in order to reduce panic,' perhaps that's so," Trump replied. "I'm a cheerleader for this country.'

After Trump said Tuesday night he "didn't downplay it," Stephanopoulos pressed him: "Did you not admit to it yourself saying that you--?"

"Yeah, because what I did was, with China, I put a ban on," Trump said, referring to limitations he put on travel from China starting on Feb. 2. "With Europe, I put a ban on, and we would have lost thousands of more people had I not put the ban on," he added; the ban on certain travel from Europe began March 13.

"So that was called 'action,' not with the mouth but in actual fact," Trump said.

COVID-19 is unlikely to go away on its own, despite Trump's insistence

TRUMP'S CLAIM: COVID-19 is "probably going to go away now a lot faster because of the vaccine. It would go away without the vaccine, George, but it's going to go away a lot faster with the vaccine."
George Stephanopoulos: "It will go away without the vaccine?"
Trump: "Sure, over a period of time. Sure, with time it goes away."

FACT CHECK: This statement is misleading.
The virus is unlikely to go away definitively even with a vaccine. Similar to what has happened with past pandemic influenza viruses and the more mild human coronaviruses that cause "colds," experts believe that as the pandemic wanes, it may synchronize to a seasonal pattern with diminished severity over time due to mutations and reinfection.

Even so, its trajectory is difficult to predict as the virus is still being studied.

HEALTH CARE AND THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT


Trump is suing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees coverage for preexisting conditions, and has not proposed an alternative

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We're going to be doing a health care plan, very strongly, and protect people with preexisting conditions." // "We have other alternatives to Obamacare that are 50% less expensive and that are actually better."

FACT CHECK: While President Trump and Republicans have repeatedly insisted on protecting preexisting conditions, the Trump administration is currently in court seeking to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees coverage for Americans with preexisting medical conditions.

Republicans, urged on by Trump, sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017, falling several votes short in the Senate. They sought to replace the program with an alternative that included multiple options, which experts said offered skimpier preexisting condition protections than Obamacare.

These short-term and association health plans, alternatives promoted by the Trump administration, while cheaper, have fewer benefits for consumers, including weaker preexisting condition protections.

Trump has also repeatedly promised his own health care proposal that has failed to materialize; in June of 2019, he told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos it would be unveiled within two months, and said as recently as last month that it would be released in "two weeks."

Trump again claimed the health care plan was forthcoming - but offered no specific details or timeline.

"I have it already, and it's a much better plan for you," he said on Tuesday.

Trump claims to run Obamacare well -- but cut funding, added limits

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We have run it so much better than Obama ran it."

FACT CHECK: This claim grossly misrepresents how the Trump administration has administered the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which the administration is currently in court seeking to dismantle.

Trump has cut funding for Obamacare advertising and navigators that help people obtain health care coverage, and limited enrollment periods for Americans.

The administration in March decided against opening up a window for people to sign up for health care at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

POLICE VIOLENCE AND RACIAL INEQUALITY


Trump misrepresents Republican police reform bill

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We have a great senator named Tim Scott, from South Carolina, and he had a plan that was very much of a compromise plan, but it was a plan that everybody pretty much agreed to.

FACT CHECK: Trump mischaracterized Republican Sen. Tim Scott's policing reform proposal, unveiled in June and voted down about a week later, as a "compromise plan."

Democrats did not agree with many of the proposals in the Scott bill, and many, including Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., argued the bill did not go far enough to "meet the moment" following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by police in Minneapolis.

Democrats offered their own, more-sweeping police reform proposal to counter Scott's. The Democratic proposal passed the House, but has not been taken up for a vote by the Senate.

Scott's proposal differed from the Democratic proposal in several key ways: The Democrats hoped to ban the use of chokeholds, which the Scott proposal did not do. The Republican bill also did not eliminate qualified immunity for police officers or ban "no-knock" warrants, both measures Democrats sought.

The Republican bill offered cities incentives for ending the use of chokeholds but did not ban them entirely, establish a 19-member Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, and included a proposal to beef up funding for popular Community Oriented Policing (COP) programs. It also imposed stiff penalties for any officer who knowingly alters a police report in his or her favor.

While Trump claimed that "a lot of Democrats agreed to" the bill, only three voted to advance it to debate on the Senate floor, effectively killing the legislation.

Trump doesn't tell full story of crime by focusing on cities' Democratic leadership

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "This is a Democrat problem, George. ... This is largely a Democrat problem if you just take a look at the list. Every Democrat city -- almost, not all, but a lot of them, certainly in the top 25, even if you go the top 50 -- almost every city is run by the Democrats. People don't respect our police."

FACT CHECK: Trump repeatedly argued that cities experiencing surges in violent crime are all run by Democratic leaders and that crime is "largely a Democrat problem."

The 20 cities with the highest rates of violent crime per capita are currently led by Democratic mayors, with the exception of Jacksonville, Florida, which is run by a Republican, and two other cities that are run by independents, according to a review of the FBI's uniform crime report from the first six months of 2019, the most recent national data set focusing on violent crime reports.

It is misleading to state, however, as Trump did in the town hall, that rising crime is primarily driven by the Democratic leadership in their respective states.

Cities with higher population and urban areas are certainly represented predominantly by Democrats, but the rise in violent crime across the nation has not been restricted to those that are run by Democrats. The insinuation of a Democratic leader as the cause of the rising crime is not an accurate claim. High population areas and urban areas, run by leaders on both ends of the political spectrum, have historically had higher reported instances of violent crime.

For instance, the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings nationwide, last month reported that the country was on pace for nearly 600 mass shootings, which would be the highest total tallied by the group in its history. That predicted total was not a summation of only Democratic-run cities but as a result of the rising crime rate nationwide, including cities and towns led by Republican officials.

Black-white income gap persisted before pandemic, and Trump does not have 'tremendous African American support'

TRUMP'S CLAIM: Trump claimed that he had "tremendous African American support" and that, "had we not been hit by this horrible disease ... we would be in a position where I think income inequality would be different. It was really getting there. We were really driving it down -- I can only compare it to the past. The African American, the Black community, was doing better than it had ever done by far, both in terms of unemployment, homeownership, so many different statistics."

FACT CHECK: The income gap between Black and white Americans has persisted since 1970, despite Trump's comment that it had improved before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Median Black household income was 61% of median white household income in 2018, according to the Pew Research Center.

The homeownership gap between Black and white individuals was also at the widest level in 50 years in 2017, according to a 2019 report from the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

The president, in his pitch to the Black community, also said, "We have tremendous African American support. You've probably seen it in the polls, we're doing extremely well with African Americans."

But his claim runs counter to recent polling, in which he garners between 5% to 11% support among Black likely voters, according to polls from Fox News and Quinnipiac University.

The most recent polling is similar to where Trump stood in 2016, when 8% of African American voters supported him, according to exit polls. Trump saw slightly higher support in 2016 among this demographic compared to Mitt Romney when he ran on the Republican ticket for president in 2012, and received 6% of the Black vote.

IMMIGRATION


Trump says 'we want people to come,' but legal immigration down, too

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "We want people to come into our country ... but we want them to come in through a legal system."

FACT CHECK: Trump campaigned on the promise to crack down on both legal and illegal immigration.

Under his administration, levels of legal immigration have decreased using such measures as caps on refugee admissions and sharp restrictions on people making asylum claims at the border.

Last year, the administration set a refugee cap of 18,000 people, which was down from the 110,000 limit set by Obama in 2016. The U.S. no longer leads the world in refugee admissions, according to a Pew Research Center report.

The president has ordered the suspension of several visa types this year, including employment-based visas, citing the health crisis.

JUDGES


Trump exaggerates number of confirmed judges

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "At the end of my first term, we're going to have close to 300, maybe over 300 new federal judges, including Court of Appeal, two Supreme Court justices."

FACT CHECK: It is true that the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed a large number of judicial nominations in Trump's first term, but 300 is an exaggeration.

Two-hundred and ten of Trump's judicial nominees, including 2 Supreme Court justices, over 50 circuit court judges, and over 150 district court judges, have been confirmed to date.

There are currently 74 judicial vacancies, with 48 nominations pending.

Judicial nominations require Senate confirmation, so it is highly unlikely that all vacancies would be filled before the conclusion of Trump's first term.

ABC News offered to host a similar town hall with Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden, but ABC News and the campaign were not able to find a mutually agreeable date.

“STEPHANOPOULOS: But you’ve been promising a new healthcare plan.

We interviewed – I interviewed you in June of last year, you said the healthcare plan would come in two weeks. You could Chris Wallace that this summer it’d come in three weeks. You promised an executive order on preexisting…

TRUMP: I have it all ready. I have it all ready.“


So if you believe trump he has a healthcare that is “all ready” yet he has not seen fit not to share it with us.

Now the other guy does have a plan that he did share...

”THE BIDEN PLAN TO PROTECT & BUILD ON THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
I. GIVE EVERY AMERICAN ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE

From the time right before the Affordable Care Act’s key coverage-related policies went into effect to the last full year of the Obama-Biden Administration, 2016, the number of Americans lacking health insurance fell from 44 million to 27 million – an almost 40% drop. But President Trump’s persistent efforts to sabotage Obamacare through executive action, after failing in his efforts to repeal it through Congress, have started to reverse this progress. Since 2016, the number of uninsured Americans has increased by roughly 1.4 million.

As president, Biden will stop this reversal of the progress made by Obamacare. And he won’t stop there. He’ll also build on the Affordable Care Act with a plan to insure more than an estimated 97% of Americans. Here’s how:

Giving Americans a new choice, a public health insurance option like Medicare. If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice. Whether you’re covered through your employer, buying your insurance on your own, or going without coverage altogether, the Biden Plan will give you the choice to purchase a public health insurance option like Medicare.

As in Medicare, the Biden public option will reduce costs for patients by negotiating lower prices from hospitals and other health care providers. It also will better coordinate among all of a patient’s doctors to improve the efficacy and quality of their care, and cover primary care without any co-payments. And it will bring relief to small businesses struggling to afford coverage for their employees.

Increasing the value of tax credits to lower premiums and extend coverage to more working Americans. Today, families that make between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level may receive a tax credit to reduce how much they have to pay for health insurance on the individual marketplace. The dollar amount of the financial assistance is calculated to ensure each family does not have to pay more than a certain percentage of their income on a silver (medium generosity) plan. But, these shares of income are too high and silver plans’ deductibles are too high. Additionally, many families making more than 400% of the federal poverty level (about $50,000 for a single person and $100,000 for a family of four), and thus not qualifying for financial assistance, still struggle to afford health insurance. The Biden Plan will help middle class families by eliminating the 400% income cap on tax credit eligibility and lowering the limit on the cost of coverage from 9.86% of income to 8.5%. This means that no family buying insurance on the individual marketplace, regardless of income, will have to spend more than 8.5% of their income on health insurance. Additionally, the Biden Plan will increase the size of tax credits by calculating them based on the cost of a more generous gold plan, rather than a silver plan. This will give more families the ability to afford more generous coverage, with lower deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.

Expanding coverage to low-income Americans. Access to affordable health insurance shouldn’t depend on your state’s politics. But today, state politics is getting in the way of coverage for millions of low-income Americans. Governors and state legislatures in 14 states have refused to take up the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility, denying access to Medicaid for an estimated 4.9 million adults. Biden’s plan will ensure these individuals get covered by offering premium-free access to the public option for those 4.9 million individuals who would be eligible for Medicaid but for their state’s inaction, and making sure their public option covers the full scope of Medicaid benefits. States that have already expanded Medicaid will have the choice of moving the expansion population to the premium-free public option as long as the states continue to pay their current share of the cost of covering those individuals. Additionally, Biden will ensure people making below 138% of the federal poverty level get covered. He’ll do this by automatically enrolling these individuals when they interact with certain institutions (such as public schools) or other programs for low-income populations (such as SNAP).Learn more about how Biden’s plan for health care benefits communities of color >>

II. PROVIDE THE PEACE OF MIND OF AFFORDABLE, QUALITY HEALTH CARE AND A LESS COMPLEX HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Today, even for people with health insurance, our health care system is too expensive and too hard to navigate. The Biden Plan will not only provide coverage for uninsured Americans, it will also make health care more affordable and less complex for all.

The plan’s elements described above will help reduce the cost of health insurance and health care for those already insured in the following ways:
All Americans will have a new, more affordable option. The public option, like Medicare, will negotiate prices with providers, providing a more affordable option for many Americans who today find their health insurance too expensive.
Middle class families will get a premium tax credit to help them pay for coverage. For example, take a family of four with an income of $110,000 per year. If they currently get insurance on the individual marketplace, because their premium will now be capped at 8.5% of their income, under the Biden Plan they will save an estimated $750 per month on insurance alone. That’s cutting their premiums almost in half. If a family is covered by their employer but can get a better deal with the 8.5% premium cap, they can switch to a plan on the individual marketplace, too.

Premium tax credits will be calculated to help more families afford better coverage with lower deductibles. Because the premium tax credits will now be calculated based on the price of a more generous gold plan, families will be able to purchase a plan with a lower deductible and lower out-of-pocket spending. That means many families will see their overall annual health care spending go down.

The Biden Plan has several additional proposals aimed directly at cutting the cost of health care and making the health care system less complex to navigate. The Biden Plan will:

Stop “surprise billing.” Consumers trying to lower their health care spending often try to choose an in-network provider. But sometimes patients are unaware they are receiving care from an out-of-network provider and a big, surprise bill. “Surprise medical billing” could occur, for example, if you go to an in-network hospital but don’t realize a specialist at that hospital is not part of your health plan. The Biden Plan will bar health care providers from charging patients out-of-network rates when the patient doesn’t have control over which provider the patient sees (for example, during a hospitalization).

Tackle market concentration across our health care system. The concentration of market power in the hands of a few corporations is occurring throughout our health care system, and this lack of competition is driving up prices for consumers. The Biden Administration will aggressively use its existing antitrust authority to address this problem.

Lower costs and improve health outcomes by partnering with the health care workforce. The Biden Administration will partner with health care workers and accelerate the testing and deployment of innovative solutions that improve quality of care and increase wages for low-wage health care workers, like home care workers.

III. STAND UP TO ABUSE OF POWER BY PRESCRIPTION DRUG CORPORATIONS

Too many Americans cannot afford their prescription drugs, and prescription drug corporations are profiteering off of the pocketbooks of sick individuals. The Biden Plan will put a stop to runaway drug prices and the profiteering of the drug industry by:

Repealing the outrageous exception allowing drug corporations to avoid negotiating with Medicare over drug prices. Because Medicare covers so many Americans, it has significant leverage to negotiate lower prices for its beneficiaries. And it does so for hospitals and other providers participating in the program, but not drug manufacturers. Drug manufacturers not facing any competition, therefore, can charge whatever price they choose to set. There’s no justification for this except the power of prescription drug lobbying. The Biden Plan will repeal the existing law explicitly barring Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug corporations.

Limiting launch prices for drugs that face no competition and are being abusively priced by manufacturers. Through his work on the Cancer Moonshot, Biden understands that the future of pharmacological interventions is not traditional chemical drugs but specialized biotech drugs that will have little to no competition to keep prices in check. Without competition, we need a new approach for keeping the prices of these drugs down. For these cases where new specialty drugs without competition are being launched, under the Biden Plan the Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish an independent review board to assess their value. The board will recommend a reasonable price, based on the average price in other countries (a process called external reference pricing) or, if the drug is entering the U.S. market first, based on an evaluation by the independent board members. This reasonable price will be the rate Medicare and the public option will pay. In addition, the Biden Plan will allow private plans participating in the individual marketplace to access a similar rate.
Limiting price increases for all brand, biotech, and abusively priced generic drugs to inflation. As a condition of participation in the Medicare program and public option, all brand, biotech, and abusively priced generic drugs will be prohibited from increasing their prices more than the general inflation rate. The Biden Plan will also impose a tax penalty on drug manufacturers that increase the costs of their brand, biotech, or abusively priced generic over the general inflation rate.

Allowing consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries. To create more competition for U.S. drug corporations, the Biden Plan will allow consumers to import prescription drugs from other countries, as long as the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services has certified that those drugs are safe.

Terminating pharmaceutical corporations’ tax break for advertisement spending. Drug corporations spent an estimated $6 billion in 2016 alone on prescription drug advertisements to increase their sales, a more than four-fold increase from just $1.3 billion in 1997. The American Medical Association has even expressed “concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices.” Currently, drug corporations may count spending on these ads as a deduction to reduce the amount of taxes they owe. But taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for these ads. As president, Biden will end this tax deduction for all prescription drug ads, as proposed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Improving the supply of quality generics. Generics help reduce health care spending, but brand drug corporations have succeeded in preserving a number of strategies to help them delay the entrance of a generic into the market even after the patent has expired. The Biden Plan supports numerous proposals to accelerate the development of safe generics, such as Senator Patrick Leahy’s proposal to make sure generic manufacturers have access to a sample.

IV. ENSURE HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT FOR ALL, NOT A PRIVILEGE FOR JUST A FEW


Joe Biden believes that every American – regardless of gender, race, income, sexual orientation, or zip code – should have access to affordable and quality health care. Yet racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of discrimination permeate our health care system just as in every other part of society. As president, Biden will be a champion for improving access to health care and the health of all by:

Expanding access to contraception and protect the constitutional right to an abortion. The Affordable Care Act made historic progress by ensuring access to free preventive care, including contraception. The Biden Plan will build on that progress. Vice President Biden supports repealing the Hyde Amendment because health care is a right that should not be dependent on one’s zip code or income. And, the public option will cover contraception and a woman’s constitutional right to choose. In addition, the Biden Plan will:

Reverse the Trump Administration and states’ all-out assault on women’s right to choose. As president, Biden will work to codify Roe v. Wade, and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate the constitutional right to an abortion, such as so-called TRAP laws, parental notification requirements, mandatory waiting periods, and ultrasound requirements.

Restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The Obama-Biden administration fought Republican attacks on funding for Planned Parenthood again and again. As president, Biden will reissue guidance specifying that states cannot refuse Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other providers that refer for abortions or provide related information and reverse the Trump Administration’s rule preventing Planned Parenthood and certain other family planning programs from obtaining Title X funds.

Just as the Obama-Biden Administration did,President Biden will rescind the Mexico City Policy (also referred to as the global gag rule) that President Trump reinstated and expanded. This rule currently bars the U.S. federal government from supporting important global health efforts – including for malaria and HIV/AIDS – in developing countries simply because the organizations providing that aid also offer information on abortion services.

Reducing our unacceptably high maternal mortality rate, which especially impacts people of color. Compared to other developed nations, the U.S. has the highest rate of deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth, and we are the only country experiencing an increase in this death rate. This problem is especially prevalent among black women, who experience a death rate from complications related to pregnancy that is more than three times higher than the rate for non-Hispanic white women. California came up with a strategy that halved the state’s maternal death rate. As president, Biden will take this strategy nationwide.

Defending health care protections for all, regardless of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could increase premiums merely due to someone’s gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Further, insurance companies could increase premiums or deny coverage altogether due to someone’s HIV status. Yet, President Trump is trying to walk back this progress. For example, he has proposed to once again allow health care providers and insurance companies to discriminate based on a patient’s gender identity or abortion history. President Biden will defend the rights of all people – regardless of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity – to have access to quality, affordable health care free from discrimination.
Doubling America’s investment in community health centers. Community health centers provide primary, prenatal, and other important care to underserved populations. The Biden Plan will double the federal investment in these centers, expanding access to high quality health care for the populations that need it most.

Achieving mental health parity and expanding access to mental health care. As Vice President, Biden was a champion for efforts to implement the federal mental health parity law, improve access to mental health care, and eliminate the stigma around mental health. As President, he will redouble these efforts to ensure enforcement of mental health parity laws and expand funding for mental health services.

In the months ahead, Biden will put forward additional plans to tackle health challenges affecting specific communities, including access to health care in rural communities, gun violence, and opioid addiction.