Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz met in an Oct. 1 vice presidential debate hosted by CBS Information that was cordial and heavy on coverage dialogue — a putting change from the Sept. 10 debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Vance and Walz acknowledged occasional settlement on coverage factors and respectfully addressed one another all through the controversy. However they had been extra pointed of their assaults on their rival’s operating mates for challenges dealing with the nation, together with immigration and inflation.
The moderators, “CBS Night Information” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, had stated they deliberate to encourage candidates to fact-check one another, however typically clarified statements from the candidates.
After Vance made assertions about Springfield, Ohio, being overrun by “unlawful immigrants,” Brennen identified that a lot of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are within the nation legally. Vance objected and, ultimately, CBS exercised the controversy floor rule that permits the community to chop off the candidates’ microphones.
Most factors weren’t truth checked in actual time by the moderators. Vance resurfaced a current well being care theme – that as president, Donald Trump sought to avoid wasting the Inexpensive Care Act – and acknowledged that he would assist a nationwide abortion ban.
Walz described how well being care seemed earlier than the ACA in comparison with right now. Vance supplied particulars about Trump’s well being care “ideas of a plan” – a reference to feedback Trump made through the presidential debate that drew jeers and criticism for the previous president, who for years stated he had a plan to switch the ACA that by no means surfaced. Vance pointed to regulatory modifications superior through the Trump administration, used weedy phrases like “reinsurance laws” and floated the concept of permitting states “to experiment a bit of bit on how you can cowl each the chronically ailing however the non-chronically ailing.”
Walz responded with a fast quip: “Right here’s the place being an previous man provides you some historical past. I used to be there on the creation of the ACA.” He stated that earlier than then insurers had extra energy to kick individuals off their plans. Then he detailed Trump’s efforts to undo the ACA in addition to why the legislation’s preexisting situation protections had been vital.
“What Senator Vance simply defined is perhaps worse than an idea, as a result of what he defined is pre Obamacare,” Walz stated.
The candidates sparred on quite a few subjects. Our PolitiFact partners fact-checked the debate here and on their live blog.
The health-related excerpts comply with.
The Inexpensive Care Act:
Vance: “Donald Trump might have destroyed the (Inexpensive Care Act). As an alternative, he labored in a bipartisan approach to make sure that People had entry to reasonably priced care.”
As president, Trump labored to undermine and repeal the Inexpensive Care Act. He lower thousands and thousands of {dollars} in federal funding for ACA outreach and navigators who assist individuals join well being protection. He enabled the sale of short-term well being plans that don’t adjust to the ACA client protections and allowed them to be bought for longer durations, which siphoned individuals away from the well being legislation’s marketplaces.
Trump’s administration additionally backed state Medicaid waivers that imposed first-ever work necessities, lowering enrollment. He additionally ended insurance coverage firm subsidies that helped offset prices for low-income enrollees. He backed an unsuccessful repeal of the landmark 2010 well being legislation and he backed the demise of a penalty imposed for failing to buy medical insurance.
Affordable Care Act enrollment declined by greater than 2 million individuals throughout Trump’s presidency, and the number of uninsured Americans rose by 2.3 million, together with 726,000 kids, from 2016 to 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau reported; that features three years of Trump’s presidency. The variety of insured People rose once more through the Biden administration.
Abortion and Reproductive Well being:
Vance: “As I learn the Minnesota legislation that (Walz) signed into legislation … it says that a physician who presides over an abortion the place the child survives, the physician is below no obligation to supply lifesaving care to a child who survives a botched late-term abortion.”
Specialists stated instances by which a child is born following an tried abortion are uncommon. Lower than 1% of abortions nationwide happen within the third trimester. And infanticide, the crime of killing a toddler inside a yr of its beginning, is illegitimate in each state.
In Could 2023, Walz, as Minnesota governor, signed laws updating a state legislation for “infants who’re born alive.” It stated infants are “absolutely acknowledged” as human individuals and subsequently, protected below state legislation. The change didn’t alter laws that already require medical doctors to supply sufferers with applicable care.
Beforehand, state legislation stated, “All cheap measures per good medical apply, together with the compilation of applicable medical information, shall be taken by the accountable medical personnel to protect the life and well being of the born alive toddler.” The legislation was up to date to as a substitute say medical personnel should “look after the toddler who’s born alive.”
When there are fetal anomalies that make it seemingly the fetus will die earlier than or quickly after beginning, some mother and father resolve to terminate the being pregnant by inducing childbirth in order that they’ll maintain their dying child, Democratic Minnesota state Sen. Erin Maye Quade instructed PolitiFact in September.
This replace to the legislation means infants who’re “born alive” obtain applicable medical care depending on the being pregnant’s circumstances, Maye Quade stated.
Vance supported a nationwide abortion ban earlier than turning into Trump’s operating mate.
CBS Information moderator Margaret Brennan instructed Vance, “You may have supported a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks. Actually, you stated, if somebody can’t assist laws like that, quote, ‘you’re making the US essentially the most barbaric pro-abortion regime anyplace in your complete world.’ My query is, why have you ever modified your place?”
Vance stated that he “by no means supported a nationwide ban” and, as a substitute, beforehand supported setting “some minimal nationwide normal.”
However in a January 2022 podcast interview, Vance stated, “I actually would really like abortion to be unlawful nationally.” In November, he instructed reporters that “we will’t give in to the concept that the federal Congress has no position on this matter.”
Since becoming a member of the Trump ticket, Vance has aligned his abortion rhetoric to match Trump’s and has stated that abortion laws must be left as much as the states.
-Samantha Putterman of PolitiFact, on the reside weblog
A girl’s 2022 dying in Georgia following the state passing its six-week abortion ban was deemed “preventable.”
Walz talked concerning the dying of 28-year-old Amber Thurman, a Georgia girl who died after her care was delayed due to the state’s six-week abortion legislation. A choose known as the legislation unconstitutional this week.
A Sept. 16 ProPublica report discovered that Thurman had taken abortion tablets and encountered a uncommon complication. She sought care at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Atlanta to clear extra fetal tissue from her uterus, known as a dilation and curettage, or D&C. The process is usually utilized in abortions, and any physician who violated Georgia’s legislation may very well be prosecuted and withstand a decade in jail.
Medical doctors waited 20 hours to lastly function, when Thurman’s organs had been already failing, ProPublica reported. A panel of well being specialists tasked with analyzing pregnancy-related deaths to enhance maternal well being, deemed Thurman’s dying “preventable,” in line with the report, and stated the hospital’s delay in performing the process had a “giant” influence.
— Samantha Putterman of PolitiFact, on the reside weblog
What Challenge 2025 Says About Some Types of Contraception, Fertility Therapies
Walz stated that Challenge 2025 would “make it harder, if not unimaginable, to get contraception and restrict entry, if not get rid of entry, to fertility remedies.”
Mostly False. The Challenge 2025 doc doesn’t name for proscribing normal contraceptive strategies, similar to contraception tablets, however it defines emergency contraceptives as “abortifacients” and says they need to be eradicated from the Inexpensive Care Act’s lined preventive companies. Emergency contraception, similar to Plan B and Ella, are not considered abortifacients, in line with medical specialists.
PolitiFact didn’t discover any point out of in vitro fertilization all through the doc, or particular suggestions to curtail the apply within the U.S., however it comprises language that helps authorized rights for fetuses and embryos. Specialists say this language can threaten household planning strategies, together with IVF and a few types of contraception.
— Samantha Putterman of PolitiFact, on the reside weblog
Walz: “Their Challenge 2025 is gonna have a registry of pregnancies.”
Challenge 2025 recommends that states submit extra detailed abortion reporting to the federal authorities. It requires extra details about how and when abortions passed off, in addition to different statistics for miscarriages and stillbirths.
The guide doesn’t point out, nor name for, a brand new federal company tasked with registering pregnant ladies.
Fentanyl and Opioids:
Vance: “Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our communities at document ranges.”
Principally False.
Illicit fentanyl seizures have been rising for years and reached document highs below Biden’s administration. In fiscal yr 2015, for instance, U.S. Customs and Border Safety seized 70 kilos of fentanyl. As of August 2024, brokers have seized greater than 19,000 kilos of fentanyl in fiscal yr 2024, which resulted in September.
However these are fentanyl seizures — not the quantity of the narcotic being “let” into the US.
Vance made this declare whereas criticizing Harris’ immigration insurance policies. However fentanyl enters the U.S. via the southern border primarily at official ports of entry. It’s mostly smuggled in by U.S. residents, in line with the U.S. Sentencing Fee. Most illicit fentanyl within the U.S. comes from Mexico made with chemical compounds from Chinese language labs.
Drug coverage specialists have stated that the illicit fentanyl disaster started years before Biden’s administration and that Biden’s border insurance policies are to not blame for overdose deaths.
Specialists have additionally said Congress performs a task in lowering illicit fentanyl. Congressional funding for extra car scanners would assist legislation enforcement seize extra of the fentanyl that comes into the U.S. Harris has called for elevated enforcement in opposition to illicit fentanyl use.
Walz: “And the excellent news on that is, is the final 12 months noticed the biggest lower in opioid deaths in our nation’s historical past.”
Principally True.
Overdose deaths involving opioids decreased from an estimated 84,181 in 2022 to 81,083 in 2023, based mostly on the latest provisional information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. This lower, which passed off within the second half of 2023, adopted a 67% enhance in opioid-related deaths between 2017 and 2023.
The U.S. had an estimated 107,543 drug overdose deaths in 2023 — a 3% lower from the 111,029 deaths estimated in 2022. That is the first annual decrease in general drug overdose deaths since 2018. However, the opioid dying toll stays a lot larger than only a few years in the past, according to KFF.
Extra Well being-Associated Feedback:
Vance Mentioned ‘Hospitals Are Overwhelmed.’ Native Officers Disagree.
We requested well being officers forward of the controversy what they thought of Vance’s claims about Springfield’s emergency rooms being overwhelmed.
“This declare is just not correct,” stated Chris Prepare dinner, well being commissioner for Springfield’s Clark County.
Comparison data from the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers tracks what number of sufferers are “left with out being seen” as a part of its effort to characterize whether or not emergency departments are in a position to deal with their affected person hundreds. Excessive percentages normally sign that the power doesn’t have the employees or assets to supply well timed and efficient emergency room care.
Prepare dinner stated that the full-service hospital, Mercy Well being Springfield Regional Medical Heart, studies its emergency division is at or higher than business normal in the case of this metric.
In July 2024, 3% of Mercy Well being’s sufferers had been counted within the “left-without-being-seen” class — the identical stage as each the state and nationwide common for high-volume hospitals. In July 2019, Mercy Well being tallied 2% of sufferers who “left with out being seen.” That yr, the state and nationwide averages had been 1% and a couple of%, respectively. One other Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers 2024 datapoint reveals Mercy Well being sufferers spent much less time within the emergency division per go to on common — 152 minutes — in contrast with state and nationwide figures: 183 minutes and 211 minutes, respectively. Even so, Springfield Regional Medical Heart’s Jennifer Robinson famous that Mercy Well being has seen excessive utilization of ladies’s well being, emergency, and first care companies.
— Stephanie Armour, Holly Hacker, and Stephanie Stapleton of KFF Well being Information, on the reside weblog
Minnesota’s Paid Depart Takes Impact in 2026
Walz signed paid family leave into law in 2023 and it’ll take impact in 2026.
The law will present staff as much as 12 weeks of paid medical go away and as much as 12 weeks of paid household go away, which incorporates bonding with a toddler, caring for a member of the family, supporting survivors of home violence and sexual assault, and supporting active-duty deployments. A most 20 weeks can be found in a profit yr if somebody takes each medical and household go away.
Minnesota used a projected funds surplus to jump-start this system; funding will then shift to a payroll tax cut up between employers and staff.
— Amy Sherman of Politifact, on the reside weblog
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is without doubt one of the core working packages at KFF—an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Study extra about KFF.
USE OUR CONTENT
This story may be republished at no cost (details).
