Abortion takes center stage at debate; déjà vu on Obamacare

Harris and Trump spar on abortion — and Obamacare repeal makes an appearance at presidential debate

Abortion rights groups were elated when Vice President Kamala Harris emerged at the top of the Democratic ticket, hoping one of their fiercest allies would reinvigorate the effort to frame the election around abortion.

During a roughly 10-minute exchange during their first debate Tuesday, Harris sought to make the case against former president Donald Trump, who falsely claimed Democrats support executing babies after birth.

“I have talked with women around our country,” Harris said. “You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health-care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that.”

Her impassioned responses were a stark departure from President Joe Biden, who fumbled his response to a question on abortion during the June presidential debate. Democrats view the issue as key to winning the White House and capturing control of Congress during the first presidential contest since the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.

The party’s advantage on abortion has widened since Harris became the nominee, according to a KFF poll released this week. A majority of voters say they trust Harris more to handle abortion compared with Trump (53 percent to 34 percent). Biden had a smaller advantage against Trump on the issue (38 percent to 29 percent).

Both candidates avoided answering questions on abortion that could anger parts of their base, though Trump has long struggled with the abortion issue and given conflicting messages during the campaign. Trump repeatedly said the issue of abortion has been returned to the states. He said he would not sign a national ban but then dodged when moderators asked whether he would veto a national abortion ban if one passed Congress, saying “I won’t have to.” And he attempted to flip the script, claiming that Democrats are extreme on the issue.

He pushed Harris to say whether she supported abortions in the third trimester. She didn’t give a clear answer, probably because the reality can be complicated, our colleague Caroline Kitchener noted. Such abortions are rare and are usually because a woman’s health is at risk or because of a severe fetal abnormality. Harris said she supports reinstating Roe v. Wade, which allows abortion until fetal viability, typically about 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy, while some advocates are pushing for policies that don’t draw a dividing line.

Meanwhile … there was déjà vu on Obamacare. The moderators pressed Trump on whether he has a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

“I have concepts of a plan,” Trump said.

During his presidency, he often said he would soon release a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act after congressional Republicans failed to do so in 2017. On the debate stage, he said he would seek to repeal the 2010 law if the party can come up with a plan that costs less and provides better health care. “But until then, I’d run it as good as it can be run.”

On the other side, Harris evoked the specter of insurance companies denying coverage for preexisting conditions — a message that helped Democrats win back the House in 2018 — and said the administration has strengthened the law over the last four years.

Agency alert

Boar’s Head plant posed an ‘imminent threat’ years before listeria outbreak

Inspectors warned that a Boar’s Head plant in southern Virginia had “major deficiencies” that could pose an “imminent threat” to food safety after discovering rusted equipment, condensation dripping on the floor and green mold on the wall nearly two years before a deadly nationwide listeria outbreak, according to government inspection reports released by the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Despite repeated violations, the plant continued to operate until July.

“The establishment failed to meet the regulatory requirements,” according to a noncompliance report, noting that plant management was “notified to take the necessary corrective actions.”

The details: Between Sept. 27 and Oct. 4, 2022, inspectors discovered food residue on the floor of the liverwurst room, live beetles in a hallway and thick product buildup on equipment, among other violations.

Boar’s Head did not respond to a request for comment. The company previously told The Washington Post that its plant team “immediately remediated” noncompliance notifications issued by inspectors.

An Agriculture Department spokeswoman said the agency is investigating the matter, including a review to determine the factors that led to the outbreak and what needs to be improved. The department is also taking a “holistic look” at Boar’s Head plants across the country, the spokeswoman said.

On the Hill

Andrew Cuomo, once a covid star, grilled by Congress over pandemic missteps

Andrew M. Cuomo — who won national acclaim in early 2020 for his seemingly steady management as the coronavirus ravaged New York — testified Tuesday before an aggressive congressional committee, as lawmakers battered the former New York governor over his administration’s controversial directive to send more than 9,000 coronavirus-infected people back into nursing homes, The Post’s Dan Diamond reports.

Both Democrats and Republicans sought for Cuomo to explain whether his administration slow-walked accurate data on nursing home deaths. The combative hearing came more than four years after the nursing home order was issued and more than three years after Cuomo resigned as governor amid sexual harassment complaints.

“Any public official who sought to obscure transparency or mislead the American people during the covid-19 pandemic should answer to the American public — regardless of political party,” said Rep. Raul Ruiz (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House panel dedicated to investigating the nation’s coronavirus response.

The view from Cuomo: The former governor said his administration acted appropriately given the hectic days at the beginning of the pandemic. He argued that his record had been distorted by political opponents and cast blame on the Trump administration’s failures to provide personal protective equipment, coronavirus tests and other supplies in early 2020.

Reproductive wars

Missouri high court allows abortion measure to stay on fall ballot

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution is specific enough to present to voters in November, The Post’s Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports.

The ruling came several hours before ballots were to be finalized and after a short, politically fraught hearing before all seven judges. Days earlier, a lower-court judge ruled the ballot measure was invalid because it didn’t identify which laws it would repeal.

Abortion has been illegal in the state since a trigger law took effect after Roe was overturned. The ballot measure would permit the procedure until fetal viability.

The big picture: The outcome means that Missouri will be among other key states where measures to protect abortion rights are on the ballot this fall, including the presidential battlegrounds of Arizona and Florida. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, abortion rights supporters have won every ballot measure fight.

Health reads

• Arizona cracked down on Medicaid fraud that targeted Native Americans. It left patients without care. (By Hannah Bassett, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, and Mary Hudetz, ProPublica)
• ACA enrollment platforms suspended over alleged foreign access to consumer data (By Julie Appleby | KFF Health News)
• Anguish, gratitude and fear of violence at a Colorado clinic for late abortions (By Dasha Burns, Abigail Brooks and Jason Kane l NBC News)

Sugar rush

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