WHAT DEMOCRATS HAVE DONE FOR US: A REPORT CARD (PART II)
In Part I of this Report Card, we looked at how Democrats put in place important pieces of legislation that:
helped families and students and businesses stay afloat during the pandemic
allowed Americans to get back to work and
lowered living costs for families.
In Part II, we’ll examine how, with the support of Dems in Congress, the Biden-Harris administration:
made quality health care accessible to more of us
improved safety in our communities and
removed barriers for citizens of all ages to get ahead.
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Making Health Care more affordable for all of us
670,000 North Carolinians saved an average of $762 on their health care in 2022 as a result of subsidies provided through the American Rescue Plan. The Inflation Reduction Act extended these savings through 2025, enabling a record 801,000 throughout the state to sign up for quality, affordable care in the 2023 ACA open enrollment period.
What’s more, these subsidies enabled 106,000 North Carolina small businesses to afford health care for their employees.
The American Rescue Plan also enabled 135,000 NC residents in the Medicaid coverage gap to gain access to healthcare during the pandemic.
Now that the NC legislature has finally expanded Medicaid, taking delayed advantage of sweeteners that the Biden Administration offered all states, approximately 600,000 North Carolinians will have access to permanent, quality health care starting in December of this year.
Prescription costs are coming down, too. Over 1.9 million North Carolina residents with Medicare will benefit from the $2,000 yearly cap on out-of- pocket prescription drug costs, a $35 monthly cap per insulin prescription, and free vaccines.
In addition, Medicare is finally able to do what plans in every other country do: negotiate prices with drug companies to lower costs of prescription drugs. Right now, only 10 very expensive drugs that treat diseases like blood clots, diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease are included. But next year the prices of another 35 drugs that treat serious disease in millions of Americans will also be lowered.
All Americans could have benefited from these benefits – not just seniors. But Republicans did not support this extension and it was removed from the Inflation Reduction Act before it passed.
Making our Communities Safer:
On June 25, 2022, President Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a common sense bipartisan proposal to protect our children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the threat of violence in our communities.
The Biden administration had been advocating for Congress to pass gun safety legislation including restoring the ban on assault rifles and other semiautomatic rifles, instituting and enforcing broader background checks, and setting 21 years as the minimum age for buying any guns. It took the slaughter of children in Uhalde to motivate Texas Senator John Conyers and our own Senator Thom Tillis to join together with Democrats to craft this legislation.
It didn't ban assault weapons. It didn't restrict young men 20 and under from purchasing weapons, but it was a step in the right direction, as President Biden said, demonstrating that Congress could respond to public pressure to take action against the epidemic of gun violence.
The first significant piece of gun safety legislation in 3 decades, the Safer Communities Act expands background checks, funds crisis intervention, including red-flag laws, and helps keep guns out of the hands of those (including convicted dating partners), who are a danger to themselves and others. It builds on the Administration’s efforts to crack down on ghost guns, rogue dealers, and gun trafficking. And it makes historic investments in violence prevention and reduction programs, addressing the youth mental crisis by investing in school and community-based mental health programs and expanding trauma-informed services to mitigate the impact of violence.
Making it easier to get ahead
The Biden-Harris Administration also used the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act to put in place benefits that could help families succeed.
For example, the cost of childcare has become prohibitive for working families, often forcing one parent to give up work because their salary didn't equal the cost. The American Rescue Plan addressed this need during the pandemic, providing $1.9 billion in federal funds that Governor Cooper used to fund the North Carolina Childcare Stabilization Grants.
With this funding, over 4,200 childcare centers statewide were able to raise preschool teacher pay while helping children learn and parents stay in the workforce. But the program ended on September 30, 2023. The Biden Administration had hoped to make the grants permanent through the Build Back Better Act, but funding for young children and families was removed from the legislation in order to pass what became the
Inflation Reduction Act. It is estimated that the loss of this funding will lead to 1778 childcare programs in North Carolina closing and forcing just as many more to set higher rates that are unaffordable to low and middle income families.
Making Higher Education More Affordable
The Biden-Harris Administration is also making it easier for folks to benefit from higher education without going into debt:
Low income students who rely on Pell Grants to help them afford community college have seen benefits increase by $900 over the past two years.
Action by the Supreme Court blocked relief for 822,000 North Carolinians struggling to pay off higher education loans. Nearly 90% of the benefits of the relief for out-of-school borrowers would have gone to those earning less than $75,000 per year. Unfortunately, lawsuits brought by Republican state leaders forced the Administration to put the program on hold after accepting applications for just four weeks.
As a result, only 19,730 North Carolinians have been able to benefit from the more targeted approach to debt cancellation that the Biden Administration has been able to adopt to date. These include borrowers who were public servants (like school teachers or police), those with total or permanent disability, and those who were cheated by their schools, or saw them precipitously shut down before they finished their degree. The Administration is still working to devise a broader strategy that meets the Court's strictures and will enable more of these low and middle income borrowers to build a future unconstrained by escalating debt.
All this is proof that the Biden-Harris Administration has made our lives better in many ways—demonstrating that government can work for us, that working together we can achieve a great deal, and that through concrete actions, Democrats have begun to restore the soul of our nation.
There is much more on the agenda. Vote for Democrats for an America that supports and enriches all of us.
Watch for Part 3 of this Report Card, which will look at how the Biden-Harris administration has invested in our economy:
rebuilding aging roads and infrastructure
helping bring manufacturing back to North Carolina and
taking the first important steps toward slowing down the heating of the planet.