Healthcare was again a major focus in the Oct. 15 debate between 12 Democratic candidates for president in Westerville, Ohio.
Healthcare is the top voter priority, and the candidates have collectively spent 93 minutes debating the topic — the most of any issue, according to Vox.
Here are three healthcare highlights from last night's debate:
1. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's rise in the polls made her the main target for her rivals on stage. She supports the "Medicare for All" bill proposed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; however, unlike Mr. Sanders, she has not directly addressed raising taxes to pay for the plan. She frames it as a decrease in total costs for middle-class families. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg both lobbed attacks on the Massachusetts senator for evading the tax question, The Wall Street Journal reports. Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg are both in favor of a more moderate public option healthcare plan.
2. California Sen. Kamala Harris called for more discussion around women's access to reproductive healthcare. "This is the sixth debate we have had in this presidential cycle," she said, according to The New York Times. "And not nearly one word, with all of these discussions about healthcare, on women's access to reproductive healthcare, which is under full-on attack in America today. And it's outrageous." Most Democratic voters (58 percent) wanted the candidates to spend more time discussing women's healthcare rights during this debate, according to the October Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll.
3. Ms. Harris and Julián Castro, the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, both called for jailing executives of pharmaceutical companies involved in the opioid crisis, a position other candidates have taken, Vox reports. "They need to be held accountable not only financially but also with criminal penalties," Mr. Castro said, according to Vox.
Read a full transcript of the debate here.
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