5 highlights from the final 2020 presidential debate
Biden: ‘Not one single person on private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan’
Welker asked both candidates what they would do if the Supreme Court overturned the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Trump assured the American people that he would come up with “better healthcare, always protecting people with pre-existing conditions.”
The president warned about the consequences of the implementation of Biden’s plan. “We have 180 million people that have great private healthcare,” he said. “Joe Biden is going to terminate all of those policies. These are people that love their healthcare, people that have been successful: middle income people.”
“Under what he wants to do, which will basically be socialized medicine, he won’t even have a choice, they want to terminate 180 million plans,” Trump warned.
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Biden pointed out that Trump has not yet come up with a plan and has not explained how he would cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Biden touted his healthcare plan, which he referred to as “BidenCare.”
“What I’m going to do is pass Obamacare with a public option,” he promised. “A public option is an option that says that if … you qualify for Medicaid and you do not have the wherewithal in your state to get Medicaid, you’re automatically enrolled, providing competition for insurance companies.”
Biden also vowed to “reduce the premiums and reduce drug prices by making sure that there’s competition that doesn’t exist now by allowing the Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the insurance companies.” The former vice president also pushed back on the idea that he wanted to eliminate private insurance: “The reason why I had such a fight … with 20 candidates for the nomination was I support private insurance.”
“Not one single person on private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan nor did they under Obamacare. They did not lose their insurance unless they chose they wanted to go to something else,” he added.
As The Daily Wire pointed out, PolitiFact labeled the claim that no one lost their insurance under Obamacare as “the lie of the year.” At the time, the fact-checking website wrote, “This fall, cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong.”
Biden dismissed the idea that his support for a public option signifies support for socialized medicine as “ridiculous.” But Trump maintained, “He wants socialized medicine. And it’s not that he wants it, his vice president … she is more liberal than Bernie Sanders and wants it even more.”
“Bernie Sanders wants it. The Democrats want it. You’re going to have socialized medicine,” he predicted.
Biden called Trump "a very confused guy." "He thinks he’s running against somebody else. He’s running against Joe Biden. I beat all those other people because I disagreed with them.”
