President Joe Biden touted his administration’s accomplishments in well being care in a wide-ranging State of the Union deal with on Thursday night that touched on topics resembling immigration, the financial system, crime, job development, infrastructure, and the Israel-Hamas warfare.
With Biden and former President Donald Trump now the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, Biden used the roughly 68-minute speech to counter his lackluster public approval rankings and draw clear contrasts between his administration’s insurance policies and people of Trump and a few congressional Republicans. However he by no means talked about Trump by title, as an alternative referring to him as his “predecessor.”
Biden got here out swinging, talking about freedom and democracy, and help for Ukraine and NATO. And he reminded lawmakers that historical past is watching.
Our PolitiFact companions fact-checked the controversy in actual time. Learn the full protection right here.
Early within the speech, Biden pointed to the latest Alabama Supreme Court docket resolution that successfully shut down in vitro fertilization therapies throughout the state, though its governor signed a invoice into regulation March 6 to defend sufferers and suppliers from potential authorized legal responsibility.
Biden challenged his “buddies throughout the aisle” to “assure the proper to IVF nationwide,” and linked this challenge on to the 2022 Supreme Court docket resolution overturning Roe v. Wade.
White Home friends for the speech included Latorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, whose IVF therapies had been canceled due to her state’s courtroom resolution; and Kate Cox, who was denied an emergency abortion by the Texas Supreme Court docket. Members of the Democratic Girls’s Caucus sat en bloc, carrying white to indicate solidarity for reproductive rights.
“Like most People, I imagine Roe v. Wade obtained it proper,” Biden mentioned, including that his “predecessor” got here to workplace “decided” to see it overturned and has bragged about its undoing. “Clearly, these bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade don’t have any clue concerning the energy of girls in America.”
Biden’s different well being care hits included the primary steps in implementing Medicare drug value negotiations, one thing on Democrats’ longtime coverage want listing that grew to become regulation as a part of the Inflation Discount Act he signed in August 2022. He famous that the federal medical health insurance program for seniors is now — for the primary time — negotiating decrease costs for among the costliest medication in the marketplace. He pointed not solely to the financial savings it might deliver seniors, but additionally to the federal finances. At the moment, 10 medication could be added to the listing yearly. Biden known as for an growth of this system: “Now it’s time to go additional and provides Medicare the ability to barter decrease costs for 500 medication over the subsequent decade.”
He additionally claimed victory with different Medicare-related adjustments in that regulation — together with a $35 insulin value cap and a $2,000 value cap on Medicare out-of-pocket drug bills. In every of case, he challenged Congress to behave with him to broaden these steps to incorporate everybody.
When it got here to the Reasonably priced Care Act, he mentioned it’s “nonetheless a really huge deal” and pledged not solely to guard it, but additionally to broaden it by working to make everlasting the tax subsidies first superior on the peak of the covid-19 pandemic to make medical health insurance extra reasonably priced.
“My predecessor and plenty of on this chamber need to take that safety away by repealing the Reasonably priced Care Act; I gained’t let that occur,” he mentioned, drawing heckles from opponents within the viewers.
Afterward, some Republicans, together with Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), mentioned the deal with was overly partisan. Trump slammed it, telling Fox Information that Biden “suffers from a terminal case of Trump derangement syndrome.” And Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) gave the GOP response.
Listed below are well being care highlights from PolitiFact:
“The Alabama Supreme Court docket shut down IVF therapies throughout the state, unleashed by a Supreme Court docket resolution overturning Roe v. Wade.”
On Feb. 16, the Alabama Supreme Court docket issued a ruling that mentioned frozen embryos needs to be thought of kids.
The choice lacks the ability to close down in vitro fertilization therapies statewide. Nevertheless it precipitated a number of clinics within the state to pause IVF therapies as they reviewed the choice and potential liabilities.
Since then, Alabama lawmakers handed laws to defend IVF suppliers from civil or prison legal responsibility in a rush to guard fertility therapies after backlash grew. Two clinics introduced they had been resuming operations after Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the regulation.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Sick.) — who had two daughters utilizing in vitro fertilization — launched a related federal invoice aimed toward defending IVF. However Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) blocked it Feb. 28, saying it was a “huge overreach that is filled with poison drugs that go approach too far — far past making certain authorized entry to IVF.”
“If you happen to, the American folks, ship me a Congress that helps the proper to decide on, I promise you: I’ll restore Roe v. Wade because the regulation of the land once more.”
PolitiFact continues to fee Biden’s promise to codify Roe v. Wade as “Stalled.”
Biden known as on Congress to assist him obtain his 2020 marketing campaign promise to codify Roe v. Wade.
He can’t do it alone.
The Supreme Court docket dominated in 2022 to overturn Roe, ending practically 50 years of federally protected abortion entry.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) launched the Girls’s Well being Safety Act of 2023, which might prohibit governmental restrictions on entry to abortion. Nevertheless it has no Republican co-sponsors and didn’t advance.
PolitiFact has been monitoring Biden’s marketing campaign promise to codify Roe v. Wade, one among about 100 guarantees on the Biden Promise Tracker. The shortage of 10 Republicans wanted to beat an anticipated filibuster has stalled Biden’s efforts on codification. That impediment remained even after Democrats saved slender management of the Senate within the midterms.
“People pay extra for prescribed drugs than wherever on the earth.”
PolitiFact rated an identical declare by Biden as “Principally True.”
U.S. per capita spending on prescribed drugs is sort of 3 times the common of different superior, industrialized nations that comprise the Group for Financial Co-operation and Improvement. A research by the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan analysis group, discovered that, throughout all medication, U.S. costs had been 2.78 occasions as excessive because the mixed costs in 33 OECD nations.
The hole was even bigger for brand-name medication, with U.S. costs averaging 4.22 occasions as a lot as these compared nations. The U.S. pays lower than comparable nations for unbranded, generic medication, which account for about 90% of stuffed prescriptions within the nation but make up solely one-fifth of prescription drug spending.
Researchers say elements together with country-specific pricing, confidential rebates, and different reductions can obscure precise costs, making comparisons tougher.