By Stephanie Armour, KFF Health News

---

Republicans and allies of former President Donald Trump are attacking Vice President Kamala Harris on the immigration issue, claiming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee supported using taxpayer money to offer free medical health insurance to immigrants who’re within the country without legal permission.

Candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives, a Trump-supporting American political motion committee and the Republican National Committee have made similar claims in recent days.

We reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment on Trump's statement, but neither responded.

The claims are misleading. It is true that Harris advocated for providing public medical health insurance to immigrants within the US no matter their immigration status. During the primary Democratic presidential primary debate in 2019 in Miami Kamala Harris raised her hand when a moderator asked candidates to boost their hands if their government's medical health insurance also covers immigrants who’re within the country illegally.

That doesn’t mean, nonetheless, that Harris explicitly said she supports taxpayer funding of services or that medical health insurance can be free.

PolitiFact has verified similar claims republican And Trump made in 2019 and located it largely false. The moderator didn’t ask Harris and the opposite candidates directly whether their plans would supply the coverage without cost or with taxpayer money, so the claim is baseless.

Recently, Republicans have pointed to statements made by Harris in 2019 during her presidential campaign wherein she was portrayed as a supporter of providing public advantages to immigrants living within the country illegally. Specifically: CNN's Jake Tapper asked Harris whether their Medicare for All plan would cover such immigrants.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee posted an excerpt of the interview on social media platform X on July 23 with the message: “FLASHBACK: Kamala Harris tells Jake Tapper she supports universal health insurance and Medicare-for-all for illegal immigrants.”

But she doesn't say that on this clip. Instead, when asked whether Medicare for All should apply to people living within the country illegally, she responded: “I oppose any policy in our country that denies a person access to public safety, public education or public health care, period.” Tapper didn't take any further questions on the matter.

Medicare for All is a system promoted by some Democrats wherein all Americans would receive their medical health insurance through a government program modeled after the one which currently covers people age 65 and older and the disabled.

Under the Law on emergency medical treatment and occupational safetywhich became law in 1986, all patients, no matter their citizenship or immigration status, are already entitled to treatment in hospital emergency rooms.

Some anti-immigration activists still imagine Harris supports taxpayer-funded medical health insurance advantages for undocumented immigrants.

“Instead of fighting back, she is at least implicitly supporting Medicare for illegal immigrants,” said Joey Chester, a spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reforma gaggle that wishes to scale back immigration overall. The undeniable fact that she raised her hand in the course of the 2019 debate means her position is to offer taxpayer-funded health care to people who find themselves within the country illegally, he added.

Harris' proposal would have provided comprehensive medical health insurance to all Americans. But not all the things would have been free. She would have allowed Americans to purchase into this system immediately, while expanding it over ten years. The plan she recommend was just like current Medicare, where people should purchase plans administered by the federal government or private insurers.

During a 10-year transition period, newborns and uninsured people can be routinely enrolled. But their proposal left open tips on how to finance insurance for recipients living within the U.S. without authorization.

Harris wrote in 2019 Article on Medium The “good options” for financing Medicare for All plans included income-based employer contributions, higher taxes on the richest one percent of Americans, taxing Wall Street deals, and savings from accelerating health care reforms and changes in provider payments.

California, where Harris served as attorney general from 2011 to 2017, this 12 months became the primary state to expand Medicaid eligibility to all qualified immigrants no matter immigration status, phasing it in over several years. Medicaid is a federal health program that gives medical health insurance to low-income and disabled adults.

California's program for immigrants is funded almost entirely by state funds, in accordance with the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit research organization. Federal law generally prohibits states from using federal funds to pay for medical health insurance for immigrants living within the country without legal permission.

However, taxpayers may bear the brunt of unpaid health care when people without medical health insurance, including illegal immigrants, seek treatment in hospitals or other providers. The costs are passed on to other consumers in the shape of upper prices and place a burden on state and native budgets.

“Government payments are the primary source of coverage for providers' costs for caring for the uninsured, and these government payments are ultimately funded by taxpayers,” says Laurel Lucia, health care program director on the University of California-Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education Center, which provides research and policy information.

Immigrants who’re within the country illegally also pay billions in taxes.

“If she supports subsidized health insurance for noncitizens, I would think that's a good thing, not a bad thing,” says Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy. “Many of the new immigrants are taking care of our children, our elderly, working in hospitality, food service and food production. Isn't it in our best interest for these people to have access to good health care?”

Our verdict

Republicans tried to portray Harris as an extremist on immigration, claiming she supports free, taxpayer-funded medical health insurance for immigrants within the country illegally.

Harris hinted in 2019 that her Medicare-for-All proposal would cover all immigrants no matter their status. She has also said she would oppose any policy that will deny anyone within the country access to “public health care.” But health policy and immigration experts say there isn’t a evidence that she would offer medical health insurance without cost and have it paid for by other taxpayers. Immigrants without legal residency also pay taxes.

Harris has not explicitly advocated free, tax-funded medical health insurance for immigrants living illegally within the United States.

Trump's statement comprises a grain of truth, but ignores vital facts that will suggest otherwise. We rate this claim as mostly false.

---

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originally published: August 2, 2024 at 11:18 am

politics

When former President Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president on Thursday, he laid out his vision for leading the country. He painted a grim picture of the state of the United States and outlined a series of actions he planned to take. But his comments were marked by quite a lot of false and misleading information that distorted the facts about immigration, the U.S. economy and his past record.

Here are the facts.

TRUMP CARD: “The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country – they're coming from every corner of the earth, not just South America, but Africa, Asia, the Middle East – they're coming from everywhere, and this government is doing nothing to stop them. They're coming from prisons and detention centers, mental institutions and asylums, and there are terrorists on a scale never seen before.”

THE FACTS: Trump spent an extended time in his speech on immigration and the mass influx of migrants into the United States, repeating several false and misleading claims, including that this has led to an increase in crime, citing recent spectacular and heinous crimes allegedly committed by people living within the country illegally as evidence.

But the notion that the influx has led to an increase in violent crime across the country will not be supported by facts. FBI statistics don’t separate crimes by the immigration status of the offender, and there isn’t a evidence of a rise in crime committed by migrants, either along the U.S.-Mexico border or in cities with the biggest influx of migrants, similar to New York. In fact, national statistics show that violent crime is declining.

Studies have found that individuals living within the country illegally are less more likely to be arrested for violent, drug and property crimes than native-born Americans. A 2020 study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that individuals living within the United States illegally make “significantly fewer felony arrests” than legal immigrants or native-born Americans.

There can also be no evidence that other countries send their murderers, drug traffickers and other criminals to the United States.

TRUMP CARD: “We had the best economy in world history.”

THE FACTS: This is much from true. The pandemic triggered an enormous recession during his presidency. The government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy, and Trump left the White House with fewer jobs than when he took office.

But even factoring out the issues attributable to the pandemic, economic growth during Trump's first three years averaged 2.67%, which is pretty solid. But it doesn't come near the 4% average during Bill Clinton's two terms from 1993 to 2001, in line with the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In fact, growth has been stronger up to now under Biden than under Trump.

Under Trump, the unemployment rate fell to three.5% before the pandemic, however the labor force participation rate of 25- to 54-year-olds – the core of the US workforce – was higher under Clinton. The labor force participation rate was also higher under Biden than under Trump.

TRUMP CARD, on the US troops leaving Afghanistan: “We also left behind military equipment worth $85 billion.”

THE FACTS: According to reports from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which oversees U.S. taxpayer money spent on the conflict, these figures are significantly inflated.

The $85 billion figure is analogous to a figure from a July 30 SIGAR quarterly report, which said the U.S. has invested about $83 billion in constructing, training and equipping Afghan security forces since 2001.

But that funding covered troop pay, training, operations and infrastructure, in addition to equipment and transportation over 20 years, in line with reports from SIGAR and Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst on the Project on Government Oversight.

“We have spent well over $80 billion supporting Afghan security forces,” Grazier told AP in August 2021. “But that's not all the equipment costs.”

In fact, between 2002 and 2018, only about $18 billion of that quantity went into equipping the Afghan armed forces, in line with a June 2019 SIGAR report.

Another estimate from a 2017 Government Accountability Office report found that about 29% of the dollars spent on Afghan security forces between 2005 and 2016 were for equipment and transportation. Transportation included equipment in addition to commissioned pilots and aircraft to move officials to meetings.

If this percentage were to use over the complete two-decade period, the United States would have spent roughly $24 billion on equipment and transportation for Afghan forces since 2001.

But even when that's true, much of the military equipment could be obsolete after years of use, Grazier said. In addition, American troops have already scrapped equipment they not need and disabled dozens of Humvees and aircraft before leaving so that they couldn't be used again, said Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command.

Although the precise value of the US-supplied Afghan equipment seized by the Taliban is unknown, defense officials have confirmed that it’s of considerable value.

MIKE POMPEO, Secretary of State under Trump on the Americans held hostage by Hamas within the Gaza Strip: “President Biden is not even talking about the fact that Americans are still being held there by the Iranian regime.”

THE FACTS: President Joe Biden has spoken several times in regards to the Americans who were among the many 240 people taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Eight Americans are reportedly still in captivity, including three who were killed.

For example, three days after the attack that sparked the war between Israel and Hamas, Biden said: “We now know that there are American citizens among those arrested by Hamas.”

Shortly thereafter, on October 20, 2023, he said: “As I told the families of the Americans held captive by Hamas, we are pursuing all options to bring their loved ones home.”

Biden released a press release on January 14, 2024, calling the day “a devastating and tragic milestone – 100 days of captivity for the more than 100 innocent people, including up to six Americans, still held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

Just recently, on April 27, he wrote in a post on his official Facebook page: “I will not rest until every hostage like Abigail, separated from their families and held by Hamas, is back in the arms of their loved ones. You have my word. Their families have my word.”

As the presidential campaign heats up, media coverage suggests that Americans are hopelessly divided and headed for a difficult fall—and maybe a tense January as well.

But that is just not the entire story, in response to reports and survey results from the American Communities Projecta journalism and research project we lead at Michigan State University that analyzes the country through 15 different community types.

In fact, a 2023 American Communities Project (ACP) survey found that there is powerful agreement across the 15 community types we studied on the subject of issues and policies wherein government plays a very important role, akin to taxes, immigration, the economy, and even abortion.

But when it got here to problems with the “culture war” (religion, gender identity, weapons, family values), big differences became apparent.

This gap between the discussion of “politics” and the discussion of “culture” — between the discussion of “what we want” and “who we are” — is having a tremendously divisive effect on the nation. And if politics and government are to turn into more productive, Americans must discover a method to move beyond the problems of cultural identity.

Broad agreement on policy

We saw the difference between politics and culture in our 2023 survey.

The 15 community types within the ACP vary greatly from each other demographically, geographically and politically. The deeply rural, predominantly white community type that we call “Ageing arable land” – small rural counties spread across the Great Plains – gave 79% of their votes to Donald Trump in 2020. The densely populated and diverse group we call “Big cities“ – counties that include many of the country’s 50 largest cities – gave 66% of their votes to Joe Biden.

And yet there was broad agreement on various issues referring to politics or the state of the nation.

For example, in every community type, greater than 60 percent of respondents said they consider “the American economy is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful.” In no community did greater than 38 percent agree with the statement “The U.S. government should cut social programs to lower taxes” – a matter we explored in a panel discussion with voters in Florida.

Even on the sensitive issue of abortion, there was agreement on the statement: “Abortion should be a decision made by the woman in consultation with her doctor, without government involvement.” More than 50% in each community type agreed with this. Many polls show high support for legalizing abortion, however the agreement between different ACP types surprised us.

To be clear, not all areas of agreement favored Democrats' positions. The statement “America would be better off if we allowed more immigrants into the country” didn’t reach 30% agreement in any community. And “The government should play a more active role in monitoring the behavior of the private sector” didn’t reach greater than 45% agreement anywhere.

Regardless, for a rustic that usually feels hopelessly divided, this represents an ideal deal of agreement on statements that, in a technique or one other, concern the federal government's actions.

Questions of culture

But when cultural issues became the main target of the survey, familiar divisions in our communities emerged.

The largest divide within the poll was on the statement, “The right to own a firearm is central to what it means to be an American.” Overall, 49% of Americans agreed with this statement, but there have been large differences across community types and geography.

In rural “Evangelical Centers”, within the South and Midwest, 71% agreed that owning a gun is a central a part of being an American, while within the “Ageing arable land”, concentrated within the Central Plains and Great Plains, it was 73%. In the “Big cities” And “Urban suburbs“, outside the cities the centrality of this right fell to 30% and 34% respectively.

There were similar disagreements regarding gender identity.

Respondents were asked whether or not they agreed or disagreed with the statement “People should have the freedom to express their gender identity in the way that works best for them.” Gender expression was rather more accepted in diverse communities, akin to “Big cities” “Urban suburbs” and rural “Native American lands,” with 61%, 60% and 60% respectively. In rural working-class areas “Country of the working class” And “Evangelical Centers“, the figures were 37% and 32% respectively.

Faith and Religion

At the national level, a sort of consensus emerged regarding the importance of religion and religion.

Overall, 58% agreed with the statement that “faith and religion are important parts of American life.” But here, too, there have been large differences depending on the sort of church.

In the “Ageing arable land”, the importance of religion and religion reached 77%, within the “Native American lands”, 73 %, while within the “Evangelical Centers”, which is dominated by Christian evangelicals, it was 70%. For comparison: In theBig cities” And “Urban suburbs”, it was 47%, a difference of greater than 20 points in comparison with these rural communities.

And there was sharp disagreement over the statement “Traditional family structures with an income-earning father and a stay-at-home mother best equip children for success.” The percentages who agreed with this statement were highest within the group “Native American lands”, with 59 %, and in the agricultural communities of “Christian faith”LDS enclaves”, at 55% and “Evangelical Centers”, at 54%. The “Big cities”, “Urban suburbs” And “University cities“ were at the opposite end of the spectrum at 33%, 36% and 36% respectively.

Culture wars abuse political debates

These issues – guns, gender, faith and family – are obviously very necessary to many Americans. But how much do they should do with politics?

People will maintain their views on gender issues or live by their personal ideals about faith and family no matter who sits within the White House. The government cannot realistically monitor every bedroom and kitchen table in America. The issue of guns will be debated as each a matter of constitutional interpretation by the U.S. Supreme Court and a matter of private belief, but this issue too could be very personal, as now we have learned. after we talked to people in Michigan about it.

In some ways, these culture wars have hijacked the political debate, although there’s broader agreement on issues where the state does play a very important role.

Of course, agreement on the importance of key issues is just not the identical as agreement on what needs to be done about them.

We know from our work with people in these diverse communities that their respective answers to questions like easy methods to take care of a “rigged” system, or with taxes, abortion, or immigration, would likely vary. But these conversations are about give and take, about negotiating answers. That is the purpose of politics, and different from the culture wars that dominate our discussions.

In a rustic of 330 million people, there won’t ever be easy answers to the query “Who are we?” In fact, the country was designed to go away this query largely open inside broad parameters.

But unless politicians address the more necessary query: “What should we do?” the stalemate and tensions Americans feel within the 2024 election are unlikely to vary.

Course title:

What is a fact?

What sparked the concept for the course?

With all of the conspiracy theories circulating in 2020 when COVID-19 broke out, I desired to help my students recognize and cope with them. I used to be also frightened about political propaganda. And at my STEM-focused school, I wanted to indicate what humanities scholars can achieve. That's why I created this course, which is humanities courses for freshmen. Until now, almost every student had a scientific, technical, engineering or mathematical focus.

What might be examined within the course?

We start with per week called “What is Data?” In Latin, “data” simply means “things that are given.” Data will be in the shape of measurements: “This bowl of water weighs x.” But data may mean: “It reminds me of my grandma.” How do when something might make sense or if it’s just nonsense?

A later course that students find particularly interesting deals with apophenia, the tendency to see patterns where there are none, akin to the person within the moon or star constellations.

Why is that this course relevant now?

A fact is an interpretation of knowledge. In physics class, you learn to interpret physical data, find patterns, relate those patterns to others, and create facts about them. If your argument is logical, your interpretation may appear within the journal Nature Physics.

However, humanities prepare you to grasp what facts are – whether or not they are based on biology or the Bible, dietary science or novels.

What is a very important lesson from the course?

An necessary lesson is that many major conspiracy theories like QAnon are about jumping to conclusions as quickly as possible. Being a great student and a great scholar means accepting that what you might be studying might not be meaningful or reveal a pattern. What we're exploring here is how not to leap to conclusions. And this lesson applies to things in the true world in addition to lab work.

What materials does the course include?

We watch YouTubers hbomberguy debunks global warming denial. We read Kurt Gödel on the incontrovertible fact that logical systems must all the time be flawed. We read poems and stories and introduce science students to interpreting artistic data, a process that’s just as rigorous as interpreting scientific data.

What does the course prepare students for?

Without the kind of critical considering that this course teaches, scientists could also be vulnerable to propaganda and unable to share their ideas effectively, whether within the media or to their colleagues, friends, and family.

Students learn to have a look at the world with fresh, skeptical eyes. You learn to acknowledge illogical arguments and violent rhetorical tactics. In the Middle Ages, the humanities – grammar, logic, rhetoric – prepared people for science. What is a fact? This is to indicate students that collecting data and skepticism doesn't stop once you allow the lab. A questioning, open-minded attitude is a necessary life skill.

President Joe Biden in a speech on March twenty second

____

The cost of insulin has risen significantly within the United States in recent times, with estimates suggesting Americans have paid around $2.5 million for it 10 times as much for the drug as people in other developed countries.

But recent changes from the federal government and drugmakers have begun to drive down insulin prices, something President Joe Biden ceaselessly mentions at campaign rallies.

Biden told the gang at a Campaign reception on March nineteenth in Reno, Nevada, that he fought for years to permit Medicare to barter with pharmaceutical firms.

“How many of you know someone who needs insulin?” Biden asked. “Okay, well, you know what? It cost an average of $400 per month. It’s now $35 a month.”

We heard Biden make this point several times throughout the campaign – in other casesHe said that beneficiaries were paying “up to” $400 a month – so we wanted to have a look.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed in 2022, caps out-of-pocket insulin costs for Medicare members at $35 per thirty days. The cap got here into effect in 2023. In response, three drugmakers said they planned reduce the worth of insulin to $35 through price caps or savings programs.

The laws also helped patients by clarifying how much they’d need to pay for insulin and other medications.

But Biden overstated the typical monthly costs paid by Medicare enrollees before the law took effect.

A government estimate of out-of-pocket insulin costs found that individuals with diabetes enrolled in Medicare or private insurance paid a median of $452 a 12 months — not a month, as Biden said. That's in response to a Report from December 2022 from the Department of Health and Human Services using 2019 data. However, uninsured consumers paid on average greater than twice as much for the drug, about $996 per 12 months.

About half of insulin users within the U.S. are on Medicare

More than 37 million Americans have diabetes, and greater than 7 million of them need insulin to manage their blood sugar levels and forestall dangerous complications. About the Americans who take the drug, for instance 52% are on Medicare.

It's unlikely that many Medicare enrollees pays the $400 monthly average out of pocket that Biden mentioned, although that might be heading in the right direction for some people, especially in the event that they are uninsured, drug pricing experts told us.

“It would be more accurate to say that it might cost Medicare patients more than $400 for a month of insulin, but the average cost would have been quite a bit less than $400 for Medicare,” said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Medicare Part D, also called the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, helps beneficiaries pay for self-administered prescriptions. The profit consists of several phases, including a deductible, an initial coverage phase, a coverage gap phase and catastrophic coverage. What Medicare beneficiaries pay for his or her prescriptions often is dependent upon which phase they’re in.

“It's confusing because the amount a person should pay varies greatly with the Part D benefit,” Dusetzina said. For example, she said, Medicare enrollees were more prone to pay $400 a month for insulin in months after they had not yet met their deductible.

Mariana Socal, an associate researcher on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it's also difficult to estimate the precise cost of insulin under Medicare because individual prices rely on other aspects, reminiscent of what number of other prescriptions can be found Patients take medication.

“Because there are several instances within the Medicare program where the patient must pay coinsurance (percentage of drug cost) to receive their drug, it is vitally likely that patients will average excess of $35 before the cap per thirty days.” “The law established by the Inflation Reduction Act has come into effect,” Socal wrote in an email.

There are different possibilities Administer insulinalso via a pump, inhaler or pen injector full of the medication.

In a report from 2023HHS researchers estimated that about 37% of insulin fills for Medicare enrollees cost patients greater than $35 and 24% of insulin fills cost greater than $70. Nationwide, the typical out-of-pocket cost for insulin was $58 per fill, typically for a 30-day supply, the report said. Patients with private insurance or Medicare paid a median of about $63 per filling.

For individuals with employer-sponsored insurance, the typical monthly out-of-pocket expense for insulin was $82 in 2019, in response to a study Report published in October 2021 from the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit that studies health care prices. The study found that the vast majority of patients spent a median of $35 per thirty days or less on the drug. But among the many “8.7% of people in the highest spending category,” the typical monthly out-of-pocket spending on insulin was about $315, the study said.

Our verdict

Biden said Medicare beneficiaries used to pay a median of $400 a month for insulin and now pay $35 a month.

The Inflation Reduction Act capped the monthly price of insulin for Medicare enrollees at $35 starting in 2023. The change provided price predictability and helped insulin users save tons of of dollars per 12 months.

However, before these changes, most Medicare enrollees didn’t pay a median of $400 per thirty days, in response to experts and government data. Costs vary, so it is feasible that some people could have paid this much in a given month depending on their insurance phase and dosage.

Research has shown that patients with private insurance or Medicare often pay greater than $35 a month for his or her insulin, sometimes far more, but not as much because the $400 average cited by Biden.

We rate Biden's statement as half true.

____

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.