President Biden criticized Republicans and former President Trump on Monday for efforts that he argued would make the supply chain more vulnerable, including undoing some of his major accomplishments and looking to replace ObamaCare.
The president announced 30 actions to improve access to medicine and needed economic data during the first meeting of his supply chain resilience council Monday. The council is tasked with strengthening the supply chain during the 2023 holiday shopping season, following major issues that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the meeting, Biden referenced a Truth Social post from Trump in which the former president revived calls to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act if he wins the 2024 election.
“My predecessor, once again — God love him — called for cuts that could rip away health insurance for tens of millions of Americans on Medicaid,” Biden said. “They don’t give up. But guess what, we won’t let these things happen.”
Biden did not mention Trump by name. The leading GOP presidential candidate claimed he is “seriously looking at alternatives” to replace ObamaCare, and that the failure to repeal the law while he was in the White House in 2017 was “a low point for the Republican Party.”
Biden also argued that Republicans’ efforts to repeal provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the Democrats’ marquee spending bill, would hurt supply chain resilience.
“Bottom line, they want to make the entire supply chain more vulnerable,” Biden said. “Their plan would offshore jobs, raise costs for seniors by repealing the insulin price resolution, the caps on out-of-pocket drug expenses, and the ability to negotiate lower drug prices that I secured in the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Republicans so far have focused on cutting funds to the IRS that was approved in the bill, but some have also threatened to claw back other provisions, such as the tax incentives for clean energy and electric vehicles.
Biden added: “Their plan would cut Social Security benefits. I thought they agreed not to do this, a couple times. But they’re back at it.”
Biden has often hit Republicans over Social Security and Medicare, claiming that the party wants to make cuts to entitlement programs, though many Republicans deny that is their goal.
Earlier this year, he had a back-and-forth with House Republicans during his State of the Union address, during which he warned that some Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare. He vowed he would veto any such effort, remarks that elicited boos and jeers from many GOP lawmakers in attendance, who argued it was not true.
