Democratic Convention, Night 2: Defending the ACA and Attacking Trump on Pandemic
The second night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention featured a 17-person keynote speech, past presidents, a roll call vote that doubled as a virtual tour of the United States and an emphasis on health care and national security issues.
Ady Barkan, a health care activist paralyzed by ALS, appeared in a video 鈥� speaking with a computer-generated voice in support of Joe Biden. 鈥淣early 100 million Americans do not have sufficient health insurance,鈥� he said. Barkan emerged on the national scene as a backer of 鈥淢edicare for All,鈥� an approach Biden does not support.
Jill Biden, the wife of the now official Democratic presidential candidate, closed out the evening with a speech from a Delaware classroom, highlighting the school鈥檚 silence and these difficult times.
Our partners at PolitiFact a range of those statements. Here are highlights dealing with coronavirus case numbers and the Trump administration鈥檚 position on the Affordable Care Act.
鈥淣ow, it鈥檚 unthinkable that Donald Trump is trying to take that health care away. In the middle of a pandemic, he is still trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.鈥澛�鈥斅燦arrator of a health care video segment
We checked a similar statement by former President Barack Obama and found it to be True.
The attack line refers to聽, a court case pending before the Supreme Court in which the Trump administration has joined with a group of Republican governors in an effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. The ACA is Obama鈥檚 signature health care law that expanded access to health insurance to millions of Americans and took effect in 2010.
It is estimated that聽聽could become uninsured during the COVID-19 pandemic due to job losses and other factors. But the Trump administration has continued its legal challenge.
On Tuesday night, Biden addressed several patients who relied on ACA coverage, including Laura Packard, with stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. She said, 鈥淓ver since I was diagnosed, every night I would go to bed concerned about what news I would get in the morning. And even still, even today, they鈥檙e still trying to take away our health care, even during a pandemic.鈥�
Another woman later said in a video segment focused on health care that 鈥淚 chose to become a Joe Biden delegate as I watched with our nation as President Donald Trump sought to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.鈥�
For Trump鈥檚 part, he ran for president in 2016 on the promise he would repeal and replace the ACA. He supported a 2017 congressional effort to repeal the legislation that narrowly failed to pass. Since then, Trump has continuously promised to produce a Republican health care bill, which would replace the ACA and protect people with preexisting conditions. He has so far failed to deliver.
鈥� Victoria Knight, Kaiser Health News
Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton took on the Trump administration鈥檚 handling of the coronavirus pandemic, calling attention to case-count numbers to show how the U.S. is doing compared with other nations:
鈥淲e have just 4% of the world鈥檚 population 鈥� 25% of the world鈥檚 cases.鈥澛�鈥� Former President Bill Clinton
This statistic is correct. The聽 of COVID-19 cases shows about 22 million global cases as of Wednesday morning, including almost 5.5 million cases in the U.S. That works out to about 25% of the world鈥檚 cases. The U.S. represents about .
As we explained in a聽鈥檚 false statement that 鈥渙ur numbers are better than almost all countries,鈥� there are other ways to compare cases globally. Those measures include case fatality rate, death rate per 100,000, per capita cases and the positivity rate.
Measured against the size of the population, the United States has the聽聽in the world. It鈥檚 doing better than the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Chile, but worse than France, Canada and Germany, to pick a few examples.
Factoring in population size, the United States has one of the聽 鈥� 16,430 per million residents, which is lower than Chile鈥檚, but higher than that of any other large country.
With a聽, the United States ranks in the middle of the pack, ranking better than countries such as Mexico and Argentina, but worse than just about every country in Europe, as well as Canada and Australia.
鈥� Amy Sherman and Jon Greenberg