Biden visits WA state, signs order protecting forests, discusses health care costs
President Joe Biden made an appearance at Green River College in Auburn on Friday, speaking to a closed room of press, local elected officials and several other individuals about growing the nation’s economy, lowering the cost of health care and his administration’s attempts to help American families burdened by the costs of rising inflation.
Biden opened by talking about the importance of community colleges such as Green River and the one where his wife and first lady Jill Biden teaches in Virginia. The president lauded Washington state’s focus on environmental issues and referred to Gov. Jay Inslee as the “environmental governor of the nation” before complimenting the congressional delegation in Washington.
Biden told the crowd it could be possible to have things such as lower health care costs and cheaper child care rates where families who make less than $400,000 wouldn’t have to worry about any tax increases.
“I’m a capitalist, and I think if you can make a billion dollars or a million dollars or a hundred million, you should be able to do it,” Biden said. “But pay your fair share.”
He said that some members of Congress as well as his administration are “laser-focused” on lowering costs for families across the nation.
“A big way to do that is to lower the cost of health care,” Biden said. “Health care especially in the area of prescription drug costs.”
He added that 31 million people in the United States now have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
“The bottom line is this: The Affordable Care Act is stronger now than it’s ever been, and we’re strengthening it further,” Biden said.
Earlier this month, the president signed an executive order to protect and strengthen the ACA by facilitating and expanding more coverage areas, as well as extending eligibility.
People in the United States pay more for health care and prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world. Insulin, for example, costs between $3 and $10 to make, yet Americans are charged anywhere from $160 to $400 per vial.
The president proposed some federal changes in policy: Lowering the insulin cap nationwide to $35 a month, increasing oversight and accountability on drug companies, capping the amount seniors have to pay every year on prescriptions and allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs.
Biden also spoke about the importance of making child care affordable. As a senator and single dad after his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident, the president said he was unable to afford child care in the 1970s.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier spoke before the president came on stage. They spoke about the need to lower costs for insulin, health care and child care. They praised Washington’s own attempts to combat the climate crisis and the state’s decision this year to pass a $35 price cap on insulin for those who have health care insurance.
Inslee spoke as well about Washington “leading the country” by keeping health care costs low. He encouraged students at Green River to participate in more nursing programs.
The president also discussed plans to invest in broadband programs nationwide.
“We are going to see to it that every single place in this country – rural, urban and suburban – has access to high-speed internet,” he said.
Many local elected officials such as Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah; Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett; and Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond were spotted at the event, along with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and King County Executive Dow Constantine.
His Earth Day visit to the Seattle area was punctuated by a morning stop at Seward Park where he signed an executive order to protect older, more mature federal forests in the United States that are at risk for wildfires and effects from climate change. Inslee and other local elected officials were present for the signing.
A White House press release noted that forests in America are a “key climate solution, absorbing carbon dioxide equivalent to more than 10% of U.S. annual greenhouse gas emissions.”
Under the order, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is tasked with developing a ten year strategy to mitigate wildfires with a goal of treating an additional 50 million acres of federal land. A 5-year plan to monitor and maintain Interior and Tribal lands has been developed by the Department of the Interior.
The executive order does not safeguard against the logging of old-growth forests.
The signing of the executive order comes after the Washington Department of Natural Resources’ most recent announcement to preserve 10,000 acres of land in order to sequester carbon from old-growth forests in the state.
On April 18, Inslee joined six other democratic governors in signing a letter urging the Biden Administration for more action on rising energy costs and climate disasters. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis also signed the request.
The seven governors specifically requested more energy-efficiency upgrades, clean electricity options such as solar and wind, and energy storage, among several other suggestions. The letter noted that the overall costs of climate change have totaled about $742 billion over the last five years.
Murray also wrote to the Biden administration last November to urge the preservation of old-growth forests, and asked that it be included as a “central climate strategy.”
The president spent part of the day Thursday in Portland to discuss his $1 trillion plans for investments in infrastructure, including investments in the Portland airport to safeguard the runways from earthquakes.
Biden left the state from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, flying on Air Force One after his speech at the college.
This story was originally published April 22, 2022 at 3:41 PM with the headline "Biden visits WA state, signs order protecting forests, discusses health care costs."
