At a Maryland community college Thursday afternoon, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke first from the lectern affixed with the presidential seal, introducing President Joe Biden during the pair’s first joint public event appearance since Biden decided last month not to seek reelection.
Harris, who became the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee earlier this month, was not on the stage at the Prince George’s Community College field house while the current president spoke, but it was hats bearing her name for sale outside the small gym, and women inside the arena who wore shirts supporting her. Harris could become the nation’s first female Commander in Chief depending on the results of the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Thursday’s event — ostensibly one to publicize the lowering of prescription drug costs due to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law two years ago Friday — had implicit and explicit political overtones from the very beginning. Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic candidate in Maryland for United States Senate, took to the stage first in her home jurisdiction, one which has seen two other Biden visits in the past two years.
The man whose seat Alsobrooks is seeking to fill, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who is not seeking reelection after nearly six decades in public office, alluded to the national political purpose of the event when he referenced Harris’ tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.
“She passed that because she’s president of the Senate,” said Cardin, of Harris, “president’s a good title for her.” The remark drew applause from the friendly crowd in the tightly packed gym.
RECAP: Maryland leaders react as President Joe Biden announces he won’t seek re-election
‘This time we finally beat Big Pharma,’ President Biden says
The Biden-backed law that included climate, fiscal, and Medicare-related provisions received only Democratic and Independent votes in August of 2022, requiring Harris to break a 50-50 split with Republicans in the upper chamber.
Celebrated by the Democrats on Thursday was a provision of the law that allows the federal government via the Medicare program to negotiate the prices of certain drugs with the pharmaceutical companies. Biden said during his remarks Thursday that he initially sponsored legislation to allow such negotiation in the 1970s alongside U.S. Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho.
“This time we finally beat Big Pharma,” said Biden, referring to the negotiating power for the Medicare program that recently reached its 59th year since enactment. He added that the negotiating authority saves the taxpayers “billions of dollars,” a figure estimated at $6 billion in initial savings by Biden administration officials, according to reporting from the Washington Post.
The effort to lower drug costs was led in more recent years by the late Maryland U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-7th, who, as chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, held that committee’s first hearing after winning a Democratic House majority in 2018 on the topic of prescription drug prices.
Highlighted Thursday by Biden was the administration’s work to cap the cost of the drug insulin at $35 a month for senior citizens. He said companies previously were charging several hundred dollars a month for the drug that costs between $10 and $13 a month to produce and package. Biden said the pharmaceutical companies spent $400 million last year lobbying Congress.
More: How do MD nursing homes rate on vital issues? Find out with federal tool
‘There’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together,’ Biden says
Heavier than the burden of high costs on families seemed to be the weight of the political moment on the president who spoke on stage for roughly 20 minutes after Harris’ introduction.
Of the man who picked her as vice president, Harris said: “Few leaders in our nation have done more.”
In Biden’s remarks, he did not mention his predecessor by name, but referenced “Project 2025,” a 900-plus page presidential planning document produced last year by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think tank. The document states in a section on the Department of Health and Human Services that the drug price “’negotiation’ program should be repealed.”
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, whose ex-cabinet members contributed to the document, has sought to distance himself from the document. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, penned a opinion article last month in opposition to “Project 2025,” stating it “shreds” American principles.
Biden, the president of the United States, no longer seeking reelection, had a more succinct, though less defined, plan for next year than the conservative presidential planning document.
“Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is,” Biden said, “beat the hell out of them.”
The remark 81 days before the election stood in contrast to the tenor of Biden’s oft repeated closing comment, which he stated after vowing to support Maryland in the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge earlier this year and which he uttered again in conclusion on Thursday.
“There’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together,” he said.
Biden walked away from the lectern affixed with the presidential seal. He was joined back on stage by Vice President Harris. He took her hand, held it in the air, and pointed towards her.
The pair walked off stage as people in the field house cheered and the speakers played Jackie Wilson’s 1967 song “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.”
The 2024 Presidential General Election is scheduled for Nov. 5.
More: President Joe Biden visits victims’ families, surveys collapsed bridge, promises rebuild
Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66beb7ad5e054b4b95908e78fba28e53&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fnation-world%2F2024%2F08%2F15%2Fpresident-joe-biden-vp-kamala-harris-visit-maryland-tout-lower-costs%2F74820493007%2F&c=8192708310434156528&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-15 11:58:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
