Biden goes back to basics on healthcare as Trump outpolls him on economy

President Joe Biden and his allies are getting back to their roots by highlighting healthcare, an issue that the public has historically associated more closely with Democrats.

But as former President Donald Trump outperforms Biden on some of voters’ top priorities, from the economy to national security, Biden is being encouraged to promote his record on healthcare before next year’s election.

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Healthcare has traditionally been a strength for Democrats, an idea once challenged by the trepidation surrounding former President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, before it passed and the tide of public opinion turned in its favor. Democrats then leveraged the issue by pledging to expand abortion access ahead of last year’s midterm elections after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. They also campaigned on the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, through which Biden capped the price of insulin for seniors and permitted Medicare to negotiate the cost of several drugs.

Democratic strategist Colin Seeberger described Biden’s strategy of amplifying healthcare as “smart” because it demonstrates who is “making people’s lives better” and who is “pushing an extreme MAGA agenda.”

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“While Donald Trump is promising to terminate the ACA and take healthcare away from tens of millions of Americans, President Biden has passed laws to cut healthcare premiums by $800, cap insulin costs at $35, and negotiate for lower drug prices,” Seeberger, a communications senior adviser at the Center for American Progress Action, told the Washington Examiner. “The contrast in who is actually fighting for the American people could not be more clear.”

For Middlebury College political science professor Bertram Johnson, Biden’s “issue ownership” is “a tried and true strategy” of changing the topic of conversation to one that benefits his party.

“It’s easier to shift the subject away from lesser issues than it is to try to distract voters from the economy, which is almost always near the top of their minds,” Johnson said. “Rightly or wrongly, voters tend to pay less attention to foreign affairs, especially when the nation is not itself at war, so the administration might have more luck in elevating healthcare over that issue in particular.”

George Mason University policy and government professor Jeremy Mayer recommended that Biden “get to the comparison part of the election,” contending the public is currently “judging Biden in a vacuum” and considering whether they approve of him as an individual rather than whether they prefer him in a matchup against Trump.

“That second question, when voters are truly focused on it, should work out better for the octogenarian in the White House than the current polling would suggest,” he said. “Trump is not only nearly as old as Biden, but he has said and done things that voters will be reminded of more and more as November approaches.”

Biden’s address Thursday at the National Institutes of Health about his progress in lowering drug prices came after Trump wrote on social media last month that he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to the ACA because its cost is “out of control, plus it’s not good healthcare.” Former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wrote an op-ed this week regarding his proposals for repealing and replacing the ACA, producing more fodder for Democrats who are eager to remind voters how previous attempts to do so ended.

During his speech, Biden claimed to have beat “Big Pharma” when he signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a hallmark of his administration.

“My legislation finally gives Medicare the power to negotiate to lower drug prices, like the Department of Veterans Affairs has been able to do for a long time,” he said. “Now Medicare is able to do that. We’ve been fighting for decades — and I literally mean decades — to give Medicare that right.”

Biden additionally took the opportunity to emphasize the lack of Republican support for the measure, noting that the legislation passed with “no help from the other team at all.”

“Trump promised for four years to have a healthcare plan much better than Obamacare,” Mayer, of George Mason, said. “Joe Biden isn’t popular with the American people right now. Obamacare, however, is. Many of its provisions, separately presented to the public, are even more popular. Those are the kind of comparisons, no plan vs. popular plan, that will help Biden in November.”

“Should he talk more about the economy? Eventually,” he added.

Biden’s address, too, comes as abortion cases at the state level to the Supreme Court are again making national headlines. The Supreme Court, for example, announced it will review an appeals court decision that restricted the use of mifepristone, one drug in a two-pill chemical abortion regimen.

The White House and Biden campaign commented on a Texas Supreme Court move to stop mother-of-two Kate Cox, 31, from obtaining an abortion after she was advised her fetus had trisomy 18, a fatal chromosomal condition that could have affected her own fertility as well.

“Legal and medical chaos, as we are witnessing in states like Texas, Kentucky and Arizona, is a direct result of Roe v. Wade being overturned, and as we predicted would happen, women’s health and lives now hang in the balance,” Biden wrote in a statement. “Republican elected officials have imposed dangerous abortion bans that jeopardize women’s health, force them to travel out of state for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors. Their agenda is extreme and out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans.”

“The vice president and I will continue to fight to protect access to reproductive healthcare and to urge Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade now so that women in every state have the right to make their own health care decisions,” he said.

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A Wall Street Journal poll this month found Trump led Biden in a hypothetical one-on-one rematch by 4 percentage points and 6 points when respondents were asked about third-party candidates. Trump had a double-digit advantage over Biden concerning who the public trusts more on the economy, crime, and the Israel–Hamas war. Meanwhile, more people trusted Biden than Trump on abortion.

A second poll released Thursday by Morning Consult found that Biden is narrowly ahead of Trump in five swing states — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — on the issue of healthcare, with at least six in 10 voters saying it is “very” important in deciding how to cast their ballot.