Looking at each presidential candidates’ health care proposals

2020 ELECTION GUIDE | HEALTH CARE Taking a deeper dive into the presidential candidates’ healthcare policies

BY AMIT SYAL

@ASyal21

The 2020 presidential election is less than three weeks away, and amidst a pandemic that has taken over 215,000 lives across the country, the future of the U.S. healthcare system is at the forefront of many voters’ minds.

Current President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden have different beliefs when it comes to the healthcare landscape of the U.S., to say the least. Let’s take a deeper look at the healthcare policies of the two presidential candidates through the lenses of the Affordable Care Act, reproductive rights and Medicare/Medicaid.

Affordable Care Act:

On March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act was passed. This law, signed by former President Barack Obama, widely expanded health coverage across the country, brought new attention to preventive medicine and reduced discrimination of peoples with preexisting health conditions.

TRUMP: The current president kicked off his presidency in 2016 with a promise to end the law “on day one,” saying that it unfairly requires people and large companies to buy insurance or pay a heavy fine. Trump believes the ACA is unconstitutional and supports the lawsuit that would strike down the bill.

BIDEN: A crucial part of Biden’s healthcare plan is to defend the ACA from congressional and legal challenges, including its potential strike by the Supreme Court. If elected, Biden would let the ACA stay in place.

According to Biden’s website, “because of Obamacare, over 100 million people no longer have to worry that an insurance company will deny coverage or charge higher premiums just because they have a pre-existing condition – whether cancer or diabetes or heart disease or a mental health challenge.”

Reproductive rights:

TRUMP: He has sought to expand a federal ban on funding for clinics that provide abortions, and has moved to cut funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

This month, a federal court struck down those restrictions, setting up a potential ruling from the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, the Trump administration asked Planned Parenthood affiliates around the U.S. to return millions of dollars in loans from the federal government’s COVID-19 relief package.

In addition, the president repealed President Obama’s anti-discrimination provisions for LGBTQ+ patients and for those who have terminated a pregnancy.

BIDEN: Despite a shift in his stance from a few decades ago, the Democratic nominee supports funding for clinics that provide abortions. Biden has made it clear that he will restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other reproductive care providers.

Biden has also vowed to put back former President Obama’s anti-discrimination provisions for LGBTQ+ patients and for those who have terminated a pregnancy.

subsidizes healthcare services for anyone over 65, younger people with specific eligibility criteria and people with certain diseases.

On the other hand, Medicaid is a federal and state program that helps with medical costs for some people with limited income and resources. The program also may offer other benefits, including nursing home care and personal care services.

TRUMP: In August, Trump signed an executive order unilaterally cutting payroll taxes, a primary funding vehicle for Medicare and Social Security. The sitting president wants to expand the use of private Medicare insurers and has vowed to keep the payroll tax cut permanent.

Similarly, Trump has proposed several budgets to Congress requesting significant cuts to Medicaid as well. The administration has also supported new work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries.

BIDEN: A crucial aspect of the former vice president’s plan is to extend Medicare coverage to adults ages 60 to 64, nearly an

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additional 20 million people. Furthermore, Biden will repeal the existing law explicitly barring Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug corporations, according to his website.

A crucial aspect of the former vice president’s plan is to expand Medicaid coverage. According to Biden’s website, “governors and state legislatures in 14 states have refused to take up the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility, denying access to Medicaid for an estimated 4.9 million adults.”

His plan focuses on offering premiumfree access to the public option to those 4.9 million individuals and “making sure their public option covers the full scope of Medicaid benefits.”

Clearly, the two presidential candidates have widely differing beliefs when it comes to the U.S. healthcare landscape. Amidst a pandemic with no end in sight, the future of the country’s healthcare system will be paramount for which direction the U.S. heads in next year.

Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission’s voter education director talks voting talks voting

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission is a non-partisan commission that helps implement the Citizens Clean Elections Act, which was passed in 1998, according to the CCEC’s website

BY ELVIA VERDUGO

@ElviaVerdugo

The Citizens Clean Elections Act’s purpose is to “restore citizen participation and confidence in our political system, improve the integrity of Arizona State government and promote freedom of speech under the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions,” according to its website.

The Daily Wildcat spoke to Gina Roberts, the CCEC’s voter education director, about the importance of clean elections, voter education and voting in this year’s election.

Daily Wildcat: What is the Citizens Clean Elections Commission? Gina Roberts: We are a state government agency. We were created by voters in 1998 through a citizens’ initiative. A component of the Clean Elections Act is about voter education. That’s really a priority for the current commission. It’s a five-member commission and it’s non-partisan. All of the work that we put out is completely non-partisan and unbiased and the goal is to educate every Arizonan in the state about elections and that includes the logistics. So how to actually get your ballot, how to register to vote, more about the process of voting, as well as learning about the candidates and the issues on the ballot.

DW: What are clean elections? GR: I think clean elections means something different to every person. The term really comes from another portion of the Clean Elections Act, which is to provide clean funding. Clean funding for campaigns and for candidates that are running for statewide and legislative offices. So it is an optional financing program that candidates can elect into. If they do that, what they’re doing is they’re agreeing to forgo any special interest money, and they abide by certain spending limits and contribution limits and what they do. If they qualify, they have to go through a qualification process. If enough voters in their districts show support for that candidate, then they get their campaign funded through the clean elections funds. The thought process behind that was that campaigns will be cleaner and that voters know where the money’s coming from. The history behind that is to help root out corruption in politics and therefore helping to make the elections cleaner so that voters can focus on voting and candidates can focus more on the issues and not so much about the money and politics.

DW: Why are clean elections so important? GR: I think the Clean Elections Act in Arizona is very unique. There’s only a handful of other states in the country that have a clean elections program, and those that do, they are mostly focused on the financing side. When Arizona voters passed the Clean Elections Act, I actually think that they were quite brilliant because the act includes, of course, the optional public financing component, but it also includes measures for campaign finance enforcement so that the commission can ensure that those public funds are being spent in accordance with our rules and laws. And all of that helps to focus more on the issues. Then, they included this aspect of voter education. I think when you look at the Clean Elections Act as a whole, the purpose there is really to allow voters to really focus on the merits of the candidates, the issues, their positions, what they stand for. It’s all working for the benefit of voters so that they can participate in the elections. They can have confidence in their vote. I think when we look at the Clean Elections Commission, as it is today, you’ll see our commissioners have a high focus on early education. That is one of the most important parts of the Clean Elections Act, so we can increase participation in the political process, and that’s really what it comes down to. That’s the heart of clean elections — the increased participation in the political process.

DW: What type of voter education programs do you offer to the community? GR: The commission adopts an annual voter education plan every year, and it’s very comprehensive. We reach every voter and every voter who has a different circumstance. If it’s somebody who’s voting in Pima County, in Tucson, for example, they could have a very different voting experience as compared to somebody who is, you know, in Coconino County. What the commission does is they make sure that voters know everything they need to know to actually participate in the election. We educate voters on the voter registration process. We educate voters on how to get their ballot and the options that are available to them. Whether that is getting an early ballot mailed to you, going to vote early in person or voting on Election Day, we let voters know these are all of the choices that you have to participate in elections, so you can choose what works best for you. Then we also educate, too, on the transparency, so how to confirm your ballot was counted. We have to talk about basically all of the logistics to be able to actually participate in the elections. That’s what our voter education campaign covers for the year. The commission sends out a voter education guide to every single household with a registered voter in the state. You can get voter education at your doorstep. You don’t have to go looking for it, we’re sending it directly to you.

DW: How is the commission handling the spread of misinformation during this election season? GR: The spread of misinformation is something that Arizona election officials have been concerned about and we’ve been really planning for the election and how to tackle that. And one of the things that the commission does is we have a team

2020 ELECTION GUIDE | OPINIONS

America, you have the chance to vote out a dictator — don’t squander it

BY AIDAN RHODES

@DailyWildcat

President Donald Trump is a dictator. He isn’t a very good dictator since he’s trying to pull it off in a remarkably resilient democracy, but he is a dictator nonetheless. He embodies nearly all of the traits of a dictator outlined by Psychology Today. He is a nepotistic, corrupt, manipulative ideologue who viciously targets his political rivals and uses force to quash protest.

Trump rose to power on the back of xenophobic populism and since he was elected without a popular majority of support (something almost universally true of dictators) and because he has obsessively curated an image of power, he demands a cult of loyalty among those he surrounds himself with. They are advisers in title only, and dozens have been fired merely for disagreeing with him.

Trump is also guilty of a truly staggering amount of dubious at best, but more likely criminal, dealings by way of his personal properties detailed by The New York Times. He has enriched his family and his businesses directly by way of his actions as president and he will have access to the money upon leaving office.

He has relished in descriptions of killing U.S. enemies abroad. He has degraded our closest and most reliable allies and the international organizations central to improving international relations. He has failed to affirm NATO’s Article 5 — the commitment by NATO allies to come to each other’s defense in the event one is attacked.

CLEAN ELECTIONS

FROM PAGE 16 media campaign. We have radio commercials, we have a very large digital presence and a large presence on social media. What we’re trying to do is connect voters with an official source of information. We’re encouraging voters to get their election information from trusted sources, and that would be your local election officials. Our website is perhaps one of the greatest resources that we have. We are He has done this while embracing and praising dictators and pushing for closer ties with some of the most prolific human rights abusers in the world. He has shown enormous adoration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He failed to confront Russia about putting bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and he has shared classified intelligence from allies with Russian officials. He has routinely undermined efforts by his own intelligence services to raise alarm about Russian interference in American elections, presumably because their efforts are aimed at securing his victory.

And then there is the pandemic. Trump’s pathological need to appear strong and his insecurity when surrounded by people smarter than him has been the driving force behind a response that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. He has been incapable of acting with empathy or even a hint of reason. He has acted directly in opposition to the interest of the people he was sworn to protect.

And finally (not really, but for the purposes of this article), Trump has implied that he will remain president for more than two terms. This directly violates the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution and gains Trump acceptance to a club almost exclusively containing dictators that run sham democracies. He doesn’t think the rules apply to him.

None of this is new information and none of it is surprising after the campaign Donald Trump created in 2016. What all of it points to is that Trump is an authoritarian, a dictator. The nation has only been spared from his dictatorship by his spectacular incompetence and by a democracy that has been, despite an abundance of flaws and failings, remarkably resilient in the face

2020 ELECTION GUIDE | CLEAN ELECTIONS

of an autocrat. The consequences of Trump’s seeing a lot of traffic on our website right now from voters who are trying to learn about, maybe, the vote-by-mail process. That’s a really hot topic right now. Our website really breaks down the process but also some of the myths that are out there, some of the misconceptions. We try to tackle that, explaining all of these processes and also the security and the integrity of elections. We break all of that down on our website. We let voters know, “Hey, getting your ballot by mail, early voting is safe and it’s secure. You know, maybe there are issues going on with the post office right now. Supreme Court picks won’t be fully realized for decades and over 200,000 dead Americans will never be forgotten, but despite relentless attacks on every part of the U.S. government, the president is still just a president and we are still a democracy.

None of this is new information, and none of it is surprising after the campaign Donald Trump ran in 2016. What all of it points to is that Trump is an authoritarian, and a dictator. The nation has only been spared from his dictatorship by his spectacular incompetence and by a democracy that has been, despite an abundance of flaws and failings, remarkably persistent in resisting Trump’s worst inclinations. Trump’s Supreme Court picks will continue to affect the country for decades, and 200,000 dead Americans will never be forgotten; but despite relentless attacks on every part of the U.S. government, the president is still just a president, and we are still a democracy. He has done a tremendous amount of damage, but the country is still a far cry from what it would look like if Trump got his way. Muslims are allowed, if not altogether welcome; there is yet to be martial law and there is still an election in November.

The United States of America isn’t the United States of Trump. It is owed to a court system that upholds the Constitution, leaders that use federalism to its fullest extent, strong, smart and honest administration officials who refuse to serve a tyrant, courageous journalists who expose the Trump administration for its misdeeds and lies and Trump’s incompetence. It is also owed to the people. The people who stood in the face of bigotry, hate and evil. The people who marched for the climate, for women, for refugees, for children in cages, for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, for America. The election that is still Here’s what you need to know.” So we have a very robust education campaign where we’re communicating with voters across the state about all of these issues that are really in both national and local discourse right now. GR: Voting means something different to everybody, and the best encouragement that I can give, especially for younger people and our students is, this is your home. Maybe it’s not your permanent home, maybe you’re just going to school here, but voting impacts so much happening is the best chance we get to make sure we stay the USA.

On Nov. 3, we owe it to all the people listed above who aren’t here to vote with us to vote for Joe Biden. We owe it to all of the Black people killed at the hands of police. We owe it to all the good cops who see the institutionalized racism in our criminal justice system as wrong. We owe it to all of the advisers and ambassadors and secretaries who never gave up the fight, no matter how hard Trump and his cronies pushed back, and continued to speak out even when they were fired. We owe it to the protesters who were killed in Charlottesville in 2017 and Kenosha this August. We owe it to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis: two titans of democracy who fought until their dying breaths for the equal protection of all Americans. We owe it to everyone who has ever laid down their life defending this country and the promise of democracy it endeavors to represent. We owe it to allies abroad that have stood by us through enormous hardship. We owe it to all of the people who live under tyrants and dream of someday coming to a nation where they will have rights. We owe it to everyone who has died speaking out against a tyrant. We owe it to everyone alive on Earth right now, because climate change doesn’t care where you live or who you are.

We owe it to ourselves. We are a diverse nation full of remarkable people with a revolutionary democracy. The rhetoric that so often surrounds our democracy makes it out to be eternal and invincible. It isn’t. It is only as strong as the people that vote.

— Aidan Rhodes is a journalism major from Flagsta , Arizona. He is a passionate

DW: What is the importance of voting? chef, athlete and writer more in our lives than people actually realize. Having an understanding of what these elected positions are responsible for I think can really help people understand how voting in that election can impact them. It’s just so important to have your voice heard, even if you believe that it doesn’t count or if you have concerns about that. I can assure you every eligible vote that is cast in the state of Arizona absolutely does count.