Greeting from a soggy New York City. Here’s what’s happening.
Biden Touts Healthcare Progress With Support From a Former Rival
President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders joined forced on Wednesday to promote the administration’s efforts to lower healthcare costs and prescription drug prices, an issue that the White House expects will resonate with voters and provide a powerful advantage over Republicans led by former President Donald Trump.
"Bernie, you and I've been fighting this for 25 years. Finally, finally, we beat Big Pharma," Biden said at an event at the White House, referring to measures he signed into law to cap insulin costs at $35 a month for seniors and enable Medicare to negotiate the price of some drugs for the first time. "Not one Republican in the entire Congress – this surprised me, I have to admit to you — not one single Republican voted for it, not one single one, to give us the authority to take on and beat Big Pharma."
Biden emphasized, as he has before, that the drug price negotiations won’t just save money for millions of seniors but would also save the government $160 billion over the next decade, a number based on Congressional Budget Office estimates. And he repeated his call to expand Medicare price negotiations to 50 drugs a year, up from 10 now being negotiated and 15 or more in future years.
He also touted efforts to cap the costs of asthma inhalers, an issue that Sanders has championed as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Sanders and other Democrats took aim this year at major manufacturers of inhalers — AstraZeneca, Boehringer, GSK and Teva Pharmaceuticals — for their U.S. pricing, charging it was much higher than in other countries. Biden on Wednesday said that some of the companies "have gotten the message," with three of the four companies capping the cost for many patients at $35 a month. "There’s some progress going on," Biden said.
Biden also continued recent efforts to highlight coverage gains made under the Affordable Care Act. "Folks, all of our progress is in stark contrast to my predecessor and MAGA Republicans in Congress," Biden said, blasting Trump for wanting to "terminate" the law as it now stands.
He went on to criticize Trump and congression Republicans for attacks on abortion rights and accused them of wanting to raise the Social Security retirement age and cut Medicare while lowering taxes for the wealthy.
"I’ve got a better idea," Biden said. "I'm going to protect Social Security and Medicare, along with Bernie and other members of Congress, to make sure the wealthy begin to pay their fair share to keep these programs solvent. It's not hard."
Why it matters: The president is hoping to benefit from a show of support from the progressive Sanders and is looking to make healthcare and lower costs a core issue in his reelection campaign.
Recent polling helps explain why. Take, for example, the new Wall Street Journal poll that made headlines for its finding that Trump leads Biden in six of the seven key swing states in this year’s election.
The poll also found that voters say Trump is better able to handle the economy, inflation and immigration by massive 20-point margins. Biden, by contrast, held a 12-point edge on abortion and, shockingly, just a 1-point advantage on which of the two candidates could better protect democracy.
The Journal poll did not ask about healthcare — a sign of how the issue, once the most pressing for voters, has receded in importance. But other recent polls have found that healthcare costs remain a significant concern. A December survey by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group, found that 80% of voters said it is "very important" for presidential candidates to talk about healthcare affordability, second only to inflation. That poll also found that more voters trust Democrats to do a better job handling the Affordable Care Act, with Biden’s party enjoying a 59-39 advantage on the question, including a 61-36 edge among independents.
The same KFF survey also found that only about a third of the public was aware of the new law empowering Medicare to negotiate prices and only about a quarter knew about the $35 insulin price cap or another provision of the Inflation Reduction Act limiting Medicare enrollees’ annual out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000.
The bottom line: Polls have generally found that voters trust Democrats more on healthcare, a potential advantage for Biden in a race that’s expected to be close. The president is making a concerted push to make more voters aware of his and Democrats’ efforts to lower drug prices, a task made more challenging by the fact that, in some cases, the fruits of those efforts have only recently become visible and in other cases they will take years to get fully implemented.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Warns Johnson on Ukraine Aid
As Speaker Mike Johnson considers his options for a bill that would provide more military aid to Ukraine, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is warning that she will push to remove him from his leadership position if he tries to send more assistance to the war-torn country.
Operating under the exceptional rules of the current Congress, which empower a single representative to trigger a vote to remove the speaker, Greene filed a motion to vacate last month but did not push for a vote, leaving it as more of a threat than an active effort to get rid of him. However, Greene is making it clear that Ukraine aid is a red line of sorts for her, one that could spark an effort to force a vote on the matter.
This past weekend, Johnson criticized internal divisions in the Republican House conference, saying they distract from the group’s mission, which he rather grandiosely said "is to save the republic." He referred to Greene as "a friend" and said they had communicated via text about the problems facing House Republicans.
But on Tuesday, Greene called for Johnson’s removal, accusing him of being "no different than Mitch McConnell," the Republican leader in the Senate who supports sending more aid to Ukraine and is seen as too establishment-friendly by many right-wingers in the House. She also shared on social media an article from a far-right website titled, "Mike Johnson’s ‘Ukraine First’ Agenda Shows He’s No Different Than Mitch McConnell."
Later Tuesday, Greene said Johnson is "doing the Deep State’s dirty work" as he plots to provide Ukraine aid. "Again, we need a new Speaker of the House," Greene wrote on social media.
Greene criticized the idea of providing aid to Ukraine as a loan, a proposal being considered by Johnson as part of an effort to mollify Republican concerns about new deficit spending. "It’s the most outrageous — that is the biggest lie," Greene told The Washington Examiner. "And the only people who believe that lie are in Washington, D.C., because the American people know it’s a lie. The American people know that Ukraine is not going to pay us back any money."
Powell Says He Needs More Evidence Inflation Is Fading Before Cutting Rates
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that policymakers are in no hurry to start cutting interest rates following several stronger-than-expected economic and inflation reports.
"On inflation, it is too soon to say whether the recent readings represent more than just a bump," Powell said in remarks delivered at Stanford University. "We do not expect that it will be appropriate to lower our policy rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably down toward 2 percent," he added. "Given the strength of the economy and progress on inflation so far, we have time to let the incoming data guide our decisions on policy."
Powell said the continued strength of the economy does not "materially change the overall picture, which continues to be one of solid growth, a strong but rebalancing labor market, and inflation moving down toward 2 percent on a sometimes bumpy path."
That big picture still includes room for rate cuts, though the timing remains up in the air. "If the economy evolves broadly as we expect, most [Federal Open Market Committee] participants see it as likely to be appropriate to begin lowering the policy rate at some point this year," he said.
Fiscal News Roundup
- Bernie Sanders, Biden Share Plan to Cut 'Outrageous' Health Care Costs – ABC News
- House Conservative Calls for Delay in Replacing Appropriations Chair – Politico
- Powell Says Fed Has Time to Assess Data Before Deciding to Cut – Bloomberg
- Powell Still Sees Room for the Fed to Cut Rates This Year – Wall Street Journal
- Outlook for Fed Interest Rate Cuts Grows Even Murkier – Axios
- Trump Built His Brand Bashing Obamacare. Now It’s More Popular Than He Is – Time
- Trump Leads Biden in Six of Seven Swing States, WSJ Poll Finds – Wall Street Journal
- Gallup: It’s ‘Likable’ Biden Versus ‘Strong’ Trump in November – Semafor
- As Obesity Rises, Big Food and Dietitians Push ‘Anti-Diet’ Advice – Washington Post
Views and Analysis
- The GOP Keeps Pushing Medicaid Work Requirements, Despite Setbacks – Renuka Rayasam and Andy Miller, Washington Post
- When Will Interest Rates Make Voters Care About Deficits Again? – Josh Barro
- IRS’s Most Wanted: The $200,000 Man – Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
- Ukraine Is at Great Risk of Its Front Lines Collapsing – Jamie Dettmer, Politico
- The States That Are Stepping Up to Take On Child Poverty – Grace Segers, New Republic
- What if the Economy Is as Normal as It’s Going to Get? – Megan McArdle, Washington Post
- The Surge in Part-Time Workers Is Getting a Bad Rap – Claudia Sahm, Bloomberg
- Intel and Industrial Policy in Action – Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
- Trump’s Backers Are Determined Not to Blow It This Time Around – Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times
- Who ‘Won’ Covid? It Depends How You Measure – David Wallace-Wells, New York Times