WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will promote their healthcare agenda on Tuesday in North Carolina, a battleground state that Democrats hope to flip in their favor after falling short to Donald Trump in the last two presidential elections.
Fourteen years after President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the White House still sees health care as a winning issue during a campaign where Biden has sometimes found himself on the defensive when it comes to immigration or the economy. Republicans have opposed Biden’s signature initiatives to lower medical costs, and they’ve seized opportunities to restrict abortion rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“That’s the split screen on health care you will see on clear display,” said Anita Dunn, a senior adviser. “President Biden, Vice President Harris and Democrats want to expand access, make health care more affordable for everyone and defend reproductive freedom. Republicans want to gut health care, raise prices and rip away those basic reproductive freedoms even more than they have already been endangered.”
North Carolina is Biden’s final stop in his tour of battleground states after his State of the Union earlier this month, which jumpstarted a frenzied travel schedule as the Democratic president makes his case for a second term in a likely rematch with Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
The state is also a health care success story for the president. The American Rescue Plan, a 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, was able to use the money, which amounted to $1.8 billion, to persuade Republican lawmakers to go along with his plan. More than 600,000 residents are expected to qualify.
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