Joe Biden invoked the legacy of former president Barack Obama in arguing the expansive healthcare proposals from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would be too costly for the nation.
Biden directly challenged his two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination on the scope and cost of their plans.
“I know the senator says she’s for Bernie but I’m for Barack,” Biden said, pointing to Warren’s embrace of Medicare for All and his own plans to build on the Affordable Care Act.
The Democratic front-runner said he would rebuild and expand Obamacare as less expense to taxpayers than the government-run, single-payer system that Warren and Sanders advocate.
Warren said, “We all owe a huge debt to President Obama,” but argued that the nation needs a bolder solution to rising health care costs and the problem of the uninsured.
Sanders defended Medicare for All as costing less over a decade than the existing system and said he should know because “I wrote the damn bill.”
Thursday night’s Houston debate is the third of the presidential primary cycle and the first to feature the top 10 Democratic candidates on the same stage on the same night. That means some of the candidates are debating each other for the first time -- most notably Biden and Elizabeth Warren.
Democrats chose Houston as the venue for the debate to highlight their chances of winning the state for the first time since Jimmy Carter did it in 1976. And there are two native Texans on the stage: Julian Castro of San Antonio and Beto O’Rourke of El Paso.
The debates so far haven’t altered the trajectory of the contest, leaving Biden in the lead of national polls and Warren and Bernie Sanders in a struggle for second. After a brief surge following the first debate, Kamala Harris’s poll numbers have flatlined, leaving her a distant fourth.
Biden is four points lower than he was before the first debate, but maintains a 10-point buffer with Warren and Sanders in the RealClearPolitics average.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who is attempting to break out from the bottom of the pack and highlight one of his central issues, announced in his opening statement that his campaign would dole out a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 a month to 10 families for the next year.
A universal basic income of $12,000 a year is Yang’s signature policy proposal and his campaign has already begun making payments to a handful of families in early-voting states.
He didn’t give details of how it would work, but his aides said they believe it won’t run afoul of campaign finance laws against using campaign funds for personal expenses. The giveaway could also help Yang’s build his campaign e-mail list, potentially boosting his fundraising efforts.
In the days before the debate, Biden’s allies had previewed some potential lines of attack aimed squarely at Warren.
His staff told reporters that he would be emphasizing a message aimed at demolishing Warren’s plans-for-everything approach, telling voters as he first did at an event last week that “plans are great, but executing on those plans is a very different thing.”
A Biden adviser also told Bloomberg News that the former vice president would call on all candidates to be more transparent in their business dealings -- a possible hint at Warren’s past work advising corporations on bankruptcy issues.
Another Biden supporter, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, called Warren a “hypocrite” in a Washington Post op-ed Wednesday. Rendell said she pledged to shun high-dollar fundraisers in her presidential campaign -- even while transferring the proceeds of similar fundraisers for her Massachusetts senate campaign.
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