From the beginning of the second Republican presidential main debate of the 2024 marketing campaign, the seven candidates on stage have been boisterous and unruly.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum spent a lot of the night speaking loudly over — and generally fairly angrily at — each other.
The moderators — Fox News’ Dana Perino, Fox Business’ Stuart Varney, and Univision’s Ilia Calderón — generally struggled to referee on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, California, because the presidential hopefuls clashed on subjects starting from the autoworkers’ strike to overseas coverage. At factors, well being care points crept into the dialogue.
Our PolitiFact companions fact-checked the candidates in actual time. You can learn their full protection right here.
Candidates sparred over manufacturing and employment, inflation, and federal spending. When it got here to the federal government shutdown risk, Haley promised to vary the method, declaring that Congress had delivered appropriations on schedule solely 4 instances in 40 years.
Asked about medical debt, which plagues tens of thousands and thousands of Americans, she pledged a multipronged effort to guard individuals from monetary spoil after they want care. She spoke of introducing extra competitors within the well being system and placing “the patient in the driver’s seat” whereas growing transparency.
“We’re going to have to make every part of the industry open up and show us where the warts are,” she mentioned. She didn’t elaborate on how that may very well be completed.
Pence dodged a query about whether or not he would make good on his promise, from 2016 and the present marketing campaign, to repeal the Affordable Care Act — also referred to as Obamacare — which Perino famous appeared extra fashionable now than ever.
“It’s my intention,” the previous vp mentioned, “to make the federal government smaller by returning to the states those resources and programs that are rightfully theirs under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.” That would come with all Obamacare and Health and Human Services funding, he mentioned.
Pence additionally mentioned he’s “sick and tired” of mass shootings and promised, if elected, to advance an expedited federal dying penalty “for anyone involved in a mass shooting” so that they “meet their fate in months, not years.” The former vp criticized DeSantis over the sentence handed right down to a gunman who attacked Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, calling it “unconscionable” that he’ll “spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
On the difficulty of medical health insurance protection, DeSantis wore his state’s excessive uninsurance price as a badge of honor.
“You can do well in the state, but we’re not going to be like California and have massive numbers of people on government programs without work requirements,” he mentioned. Under DeSantis, Florida is one in every of simply 10 states which have declined to benefit from federal funding accessible below Obamacare to broaden Medicaid, this system that covers low-income Americans.
Throughout the night, the candidates generally invoked Reagan’s title and reminiscence. He wasn’t the one former president not in attendance however usually talked about. Donald Trump, who enjoys a commanding lead within the polls, opted once more to avoid the controversy stage.
“Donald, I know you are watching — you can’t help yourself,” Christie mentioned early on. He mentioned Trump averted the occasion as a result of he was “afraid” of “being on the stage” and defending his document.
Trump advised Fox News Digital in an interview after the controversy that he hadn’t watched it.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson didn’t meet the Republican National Committee’s donor and polling thresholds to take part. Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd additionally didn’t qualify.
Here are final evening’s health-related claims checked by PolitiFact:
Ron DeSantis: 2.6 million Floridians going with out medical health insurance “is a symptom of our overall economic decline.”
When moderator Varney pressed DeSantis on the comparatively excessive variety of Floridians with out medical health insurance — Varney mentioned it’s 2.6 million — DeSantis blamed politicians in Washington, D.C.
But the numbers from DeSantis’ personal state well being division present no correlation between financial situations and the variety of Floridians with out medical health insurance. Despite inhabitants development and financial adjustments, Florida had about 2.6 million uninsured residents from 2018 by means of 2021, and about 2.4 million in 2022.
In 2022, Florida’s uninsured price was 11.2%, increased than the 8% nationwide price, in accordance with the U.S. Census Bureau.
Vivek Ramaswamy: “Transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder.”
Medical specialists disagree. Being transgender and having gender dysphoria — the misery that some individuals could expertise when their intercourse assigned at delivery doesn’t align with their gender id — just isn’t thought-about a psychological well being dysfunction. Historically, the analysis has carried the time period “disorder,” however specialists not view it as a pathology and are working to destigmatize the analysis.
Previous phrases akin to “gender identity disorder” and “transexualism” have developed into “gender incongruence,” a situation the World Health Organization now considers a situation associated to sexual well being — not psychological well being. The American Psychiatric Association’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” or DSM-5, comprises a analysis for “gender dysphoria,” however specialists say it stays partly to let insurance coverage firms cowl gender-affirming care and let incarcerated individuals entry care.
Mike Pence: Linn-Mar Community School District in Iowa had a coverage the place “you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents.”
This wants extra context. The Iowa faculty district exterior Cedar Rapids in 2022 adopted a coverage that allowed college students to request a “gender support plan.” According to Axios, this plan would define a scholar’s most popular title and pronouns in addition to which locker rooms or rest room the scholar would use, which is related to a social, fairly than a medical, transition.
The scholar might select whether or not the dad and mom have been knowledgeable, however the plan was not associated to medical transition, which, for minors, requires the consent of parental guardians. Schools usually don’t inform dad and mom when college students sign they’re socially transitioning, The Washington Post reported.
Tim Scott: The southwestern U.S. border below President Joe Biden is “unsafe, wide-open, and insecure, leading to the deaths of 70,000 Americans in the last 12 months because of fentanyl.”
Scott’s declare is deceptive. Deaths from fentanyl jumped 23% in Biden’s first 12 months in workplace to greater than 70,000. But they’ve been growing since 2014 and in addition rose throughout the Trump administration.
Although immigration encounters on the southern U.S. border have spiked below Biden’s watch, a lot of the fentanyl coming into the U.S. from Mexico reportedly comes by means of authorized ports of entry. The overwhelming majority of individuals sentenced for fentanyl trafficking are U.S. residents, federal knowledge exhibits.
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. Learn extra about KFF.
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