vice president harris: hello, hello, north carolina! [cheers] oh, it's good to be back. it's good to be back. please have a seat, everyone, please have a seat. so before i begin, i will say a few words on the terrible accident in baltimore. this morning. i know we are all praying for the families of those who are missing and all those who have been touched by in tragedy. i spoke with the governor of maryland this morning and we have directed the federal government to use all the resources that are available to assist with the search and rescue, to reopen the port and to rebuild the bridge as quickly as possible and, of course, i know we all will stand and continue to stand with the people of maryland. and now, i will discuss the

reason why we are here today. so, again, it is good to be back in this beautiful state. it is good to be here with my dear friend, governor roy cooper. [applause] governor cooper and i served together as attorneys general and so i have known his work for many years and i will tell you no one fights harder for the people of this state than roy cooper. [applause] yes. i also see your extraordinary attorney josh stein. [applause] who is a powerful, powerful defender of our most fundamental rights and freedoms and thank you, josh, for all your work, and to all the leaders here today. thank you. so we here agree that access to health care should be a right and not just a privilege of

those who can afford it. [applause] yes. and guided then by that fundamental belief, over the past three years, president biden and i have made health care more accessible and more affordable for impacts of americans. we cut the cost of prescription drugs for millions of seniors. we stranded access to medicare and medicaid. we made the largest investment in youth mental health in history -- [applause] -- with 14,000 new mental health counselors in schools across our nation, including hundreds right here in north carolina. and we strengthened the affordable care act so that today, more americans have health care coverage than ever before in the history of our country. [applause]

as you have heard and know, 14 years ago when he was vice president, joe biden helped pass the affordable care act and he is without doubt one of our nation's greatest champions for affordable health care. 11 years ago, when i was attorney general in california, i led 10 other state attorneys general to defend the a.c.a. in the united states supreme court and together we have since signed up millions of americans for affordable care. we have also taken on the crisis, the health care crisis of maternal mortality. [applause] because in the 21st century in the united states of america, it should not be the case that women here die in connection with childbirth at a higher rate than women in any other wealthy

nation in the world. [applause] that black women -- that black women are three times as likely to die next with pregnancy. native women twice as likely to die in connection with pregnancy. rural women one and a half more times as likely to die. it is also the case that one of the most significant factors that contributes to this crisis of maternal mortality is that millions of women in america do not have access to adequate postpartum care. in fact, when we took office, in most states, women on medicaid were only entitled to two months of coverage for postpartum care. two months. and only three states, when we took office, only three states in our nation offered 12 months of postpartum care.

so many of you know how i am. we came in and i said ok, let's issue a challenge, which i did, to every state in our nation, extend postpartum medicaid coverage from a measly two months to 12 months and i am proud, north carolina, to report so far a total of 45 states have now completed that challenge. [applause] including north carolina. and governor, thank you for answering the call. [applause] but while president biden and i are fighting to expand abc access to affordable health care, there are extremists in our country trying to take away health care coverage or make it machine expensive. extremists who wants to take away coverage from our seniors by trying to cut social security

and medicare. they want to take away coverage for working families by trying to gut medicaid. and they want to take away coverage from people with preview existing conditions by continually trying to repeal the affordable care act. and, across our nation, extremists attack a woman's access to health care and reproductive health care. they have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors and punish women. laws that threaten doctors and newses with prison time even for life. simply for providing reproductive care. laws that even make no exception for rape or incest. the result is a health care crisis with real harm. consider, since roe was overturned, i have met women who were refused care during a

miscarriage. i met a woman who went to the emergency room and was turned away repeatedly because the doctors there were afraid they may be thrown in jail for helping her. and it was only when she developed sepsis that she received care. earlier this month, i visited a clinic in minnesota where i met with medical professionals, courage and dedicated women who provide critical health care. [applause] who also see around our country that clinics just like there are being forced to close around our nation and understand, the chinnics -- clinics that extremists are forcing to close, they provide so much more than abortion care. they provide birth cancer

screenings, contra septemberive care. paps. essential life-saving care being generated to millions of women across our country. so i'll end where i began, access to health care should be a right and not just a privilege. no matter who you are, where you live or how much you earn. [applause] and president biden, with your support, will continue to make sure that everyone in our country has the health care they need. and now, to say a few words about the profound impact that access to affordable health care has on a family, please join me in welcoming lori kelly. -- kelley.

lori? [applause] lori: good afternoon, everyone. my name is lori kelley and i am from harrisburg, north carolina. i'm a mother of three and a grandmother of six. after spending 16 years being locked out of affordable health care, today i stand in front of you having coverage now thanks to medicaid expansion in north carolina. [applause] in 2008 i was diagnosed with a progressive eye disease. it affects everything in my daily live, from driving to reading, to working and it -- no health insurance meant no no regular checkups for my eyes and no regular care if i got sick and nothing to be done if i had

an accident. in december i hurt my finger and got a terrible infection. i was really scared because emergency care and surgery that was necessary was not in the budget. it was right then that i found out that i qualified for medicaid. [applause] right in the nick of time i found out through an email and i thought it was a hoax but it was true. and it was because of the affordable care act and the closing of the gap, which president biden, vice president harris, governor cooper and many others worked to make a reality and today here we are with something to celebrate. [applause] because of medicaid expansion, and tireless advocacy work to close the gap, now i don't have to worry about how to pay for surgery or the routine care they need. i have peace of mind now. i often say i feel like i got the keys to the kingdom and i know for millions more like me with similar stories.

i'm truly grateful for the blessing that this is and continues to be, for myself and for so many others, which is why i am honored to introduce to you someone who's been fighting for people just like me. ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. joe biden! [applause] ♪ president biden: hello, hello, hello, raleigh. [applause] please, y'all have a seat. [cheers] thank you. thank you, thank you, thank you. please, thank you. lori, thank you for that introduction and for sharing your story with us. as a daughter, a mom, a granddaughter, grandmother, i i should say, you're doing

everything you can to care for the family and for yourself while still taking care of others in need. you're incredible. pretty incredible. and so is kamala. she's really incredible. [applause] as vice president of the united states, as attorney general of california, kamala always fought for people like lori who stood for the basic truth that health care is a right, should be a right, not just a privilege in america. i want to especially thank your incredible governor roy cooper. [cheers] by the way, he is an incredible governor and first lady kristin cooper for welcoming us today and for their friendship. when i think of the coopers i think of one word and i mean it sincerely. highest compliment i can give to anybody who's ever been in office. they have enormous integ de. -- integrity.

because governor cooper never gave up, north carolina has extended health care coverage, which has helped 400,000 north carolinians so far. that by itself is a heck of a legacy. i also want to thank your attorney general josh stein who fought for a.c.a. and fought to extend medicaid as well. he's an outstanding leader and peek intoing of great -- speaking of great leaders and legacy, 14 years ago this week, i stood by president obama as he signed into law the affordable care act. as many of you know i thought it was a big deal. thank god my mom wasn't around. well, look, it's even a bigger deal today. the affordable care act is the most controversial health care act since medicare and medicaid. it was always about millions of

americans lying in bed at night wondering what would happen if i lose my insurance. my dad came home one day. we lived in a four-bedroom house, my mom and pop with us. i could hear my dad was restless at hell. i couldn't understand why. the next morning, i was 14 years old, i asked mom what's the matter. well, he just lost his health insurance. the company he worked for no longer is paying his health since. there are a millions of people laying in bed at night woundsering whatle ham if i get cancer or my child gets seriously ill. can we afford the medical bill, will we have to sell the house? because of all of you and those across the country, we changed that and made the affordable care act the law of the land. [applause]

-- nothing but persistent. they've tried toed repeal it 50 times, not a joke. 50 times they've tried to repeal it. we stopped them every time and now they're -- into the budget again. 120 or 160, i'm not sure how many of the house members put out their house budget for next year wanting to get rid of the affordable health care act again. but i got news for them, we're going to stop them again. [applause] look, kamala and i have come back to north carolina to celebrate the a.c.a. and remind all of us we can't take anything for granted. just any back before the a.c.a. a patient with a heart disease, diabetes or a child with as massachusetts couldn't -- sasthma couldn't get coverage, why? because the insurance companies

considered ate preview existing condition. [someone in audience yelling] >> everybody deserves health care. be patient with them. they have a point. we need to get a lot more care into the -- [applause] but folks -- [applause] back to the subjects at hand. even pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition. did y'all know that? for all the young people out there, before a.c.a., you could kick off your parents' health care plans before you turned 26 just as you're heading out on

your own. a lot as changed. for so many other people that couldn't leave a dead end job or start their own business because they couldn't risk losing the health care they had where they are. and prior to the a.c.a., many insurance companies imposed lifetime caps on how much coverage your insurance policy would give you. that meant a cancer patient would be halfway through chemo and they reached the cap and their insurance cut out. i'm serious. i know it sounds hard to believe. many of you, pray to god, you haven't had to go through that but companies would stop covering and that life was put in danger. they just cut off the insurance. think about that. so many americans heard these words -- sorry, you're on your own. for god's sake, this is the united states of america. we're so much better than that. that's why the affordable care act is so important and why kamala and i are making it

stronger than ever before. folks -- [applause] the laws i wrote and signed, the american rescue plan, the inflation reduction act, both of which not a single, solitaire republican in congress voted for. i enacted tax celts reducing health care payments for millions of working families under the affordable care act. those tax celts expire next year. i'm calling on congress to make that $800 expanded affordable health care tax credit permanent. [applause] otherwise, many of the americans wouldn't coverage could lose their coverage. folks, it's because we're making the a.c.a. stronger and more affordable, a.c.a. edge rollment is breaking records. today everyone can get affordable coverage through the a.c.a. and 80% of the folks on the a.c.a. plan can get a plan for $10 a month.

$10 a month. 21 million people covered under a.c.a., a 71% increase just since kamala and i came to office. and that includes over one million folks right here in north carolina. [applause] and on top of that, machine americans have health care today than any other president -- under any other president and it's saving american taxpayers money. saves money. you talk about-year spending, saves the terps' money. it's cheaper to pay for a preventive mammogram nan it is to treat a cancer. today, 100 million millions will no longer be denied insurance because of preexisting conditions. more than 21 million low income adults have received coverage. 400,000 right here in north carolina because of roy cooper.

[applause] and kamala and i are making health care morerd -- affordable and accessible in other ways as well. americans pay more for prescription drugs than anyone else in the world. i could get you on air force one and you tell me if you have a prescription to fill out here in toronto. i could fly to toronto, berlin, london, rome and i can get that you same prescription from that same company somewhere for $40% to $-- 40% to 60% less than you could get it here. again, not a single republican voted for it. we finally beat big pharma. finally. [applause] for example, instead of seniors with diabetes paying as much as $400 for their insulin they so badly need, they anyhow only have to pay $35 a month, period. by the way, you know how much it

costs to make that insulin? $10. packaging and everything, $12.50. i want to extend -- whether you're a senior or not, everyone, everyone. [applause] folks, and it saves the american taxpayers money. that's what that one little act did when we passed it. it saves the american taxpayers $160 billion. $160 billion. they know longer have to pay $400. they pay $35, among other things. folks, for people who talked about giving medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs and federal payment, just like v.a. pays, i've been fighting for that and congressmen have been fighting for that since we were almost kids in the congress. guess what, we finally got it

done. that's saving taxpayers and the freshman deficit is down by $160 million for the next 10 years. because of the laugh i signed, medicare is able to continue to negotiate low every prices for some other of the costliest drugs. for example, for heart disease, for arthritis. now it's time to go further and give medicare the power to negotiate even lower prices on drugs over the next decade. this not only saves lives, going to save the taxpayers an additional $200 billion only top of the 160. this saves money. saves money. the law i signed starting next year we've capped total prescription drug costs for seniors on medicare at $2,000 a year, no matter what the total costs are. even for expensive cancer drugs that costs up to $15,000 a career.

it's going to be capped at $2,000 a year and save a hell of a lot more money as well and folks, i want to make sure that's available for everyone. that's my objective in the second term. [applause] by the way, the pharmaceutical companies will still make billions of dollars. they're not going to go broke. folks, here's the deal. my predecessor and the republican congress have a different plan. four years ago this month we saw how my predecessor didn't care much about science and reason during the pandemic that went on to claim one million american lives. it's estimated between eight and 10 beam left behind. trump told americans all they had to do with you see inject bleach in themselves, remember that? not a joke. you think i'm making this up. even before the pandemic, my

republican congress were hell-bent on getting rid of the a.c.a. they came within one vote. but a close friend who we spent a lot of time together over the years but it failed because of my deceased friend john mccain going like this. [applause] and even during the deadly pandemic, trump and my good friends in congress wanted to get rid of the a.c.a. and kick millions of americans off of health insurance. it's sick. now they want to quote, his words, terminate the a.c.a., as my principled saysor says. if that ever happened we'd also terminate a lot of lives as well. buff we're not going to let that am. if they got rid of the a.c.a. because of donald trump and his maga republican congress, 49 million would lose their health insurance. 100 million americans with

preexisting conditions would lose coverage. and millions including kids who just graduated from college would have kicked off his parents' plan. trump and the maga republican officials wants to take us back where cancer patients were cut off from insurance halfway through the chemo because they reached what they called their limit and what insurance companies were willing to pay. they want to take us back when women could be charged more for health care and preventative services like mammograms and they'd no longer be free. i'm serious. if you didn't know any better you'd think i was making this stuff up. the maga republican congress just proposed a plan to get rid of medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, and

they plan to slash medicaid as a result. close out hundreds of rural hospitals. you know how these rural hospitals make it? because of the health care plans that are made available through the a.c.a. that's how they can afford to stay open. so many were closing because they couldn't afford to stay open. the republican plan would deny millions of seniors to diabetes access to quality long-term care they get now under medicaid. including 30 million children. they'd be at risk of losing that coverage as well. trump also recently said about social security and medicare. he said, quote, i'm quoting -- there's a lot you can do in terms of cutting. a tremendous amount of things you can do when you cut. right on cue the same budget that 180 house republicans just proposed to cut medicare and medicaid. they'd also raise social

security retirement age and slash medicare giving millions in tax breaks to the very wealthy instead. they'd raise the debt more than anybody did in four years and they're about to do it again if they win. i after better idea. i'll protect social security and medicare. instead of giving the very wealthi another $2 billion tax cut, i'll make sure the wealthi pay their fair share of taxes to sustain it. [applause] folks, my predecessor and maga officials are going after seniors and children with disabilities and they're going after women as well. trump proudly says "after 50 years i was able to kill roe v. wade." that's the state. you've seen it on 2006. he's talking about how donald trump killed roe v. wade.

he says there has been to be punishment for women. trump and the maga republicans are responsible for the chaos that followed and are now calling on a national banal on choice for every state not just those enrolled now. on top of that, just this morning -- speaker heard a case to good access to medication that was approved by the f.d.a.20 years ago to give women a choice. folks, if america sends me to congress and the democrats, i promise you kamala and i will restore roe v. wade as the law of the land again. [applause] we will. folks. let me close with this. -- may decide there's a greater risk in doing nothing rather

than doing something, when it comes to the health and well-being ott nation. through the little of president obama we made history with the affordable care act. while there are those who want to take us back in time. all of us together are determinedded to move us forward. i see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it. i see the future of health care as a right and we restore and choose to protect the freedoms and not take it away. i-see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally win to pay their fair share. folks, you notice -- aren't making much fun of biden-nomics anymore. do you know how many billionaires there are in america? now a thousand. you know what their average federal tax is?

8.2%. anybody want to trade with the billionaires' tax rate? guess what, if they just paid 25%, not the highest factor bia long shot. 25%, you know what this would do? raise $400 billion over the next 10 years. imagine what we could do with that. fund mentally slash the federal deficit. home care, so many things. consequential including finally making sure that we take care of ukraine from that butcher creature. [applause] -- creep. i see a future where we save the planet from -- crisis and the planet from gun violence. above all for a future for all americans, a country of all americans and i'll always be president for all americans. i've never been more optimistic about our future and i know i'm only 40 years old. times two plus one but we just

remember who in god's name we are. i mean in sincerely. and i'll end with this. we're the united states of america. no, i'm serious. we're the united states of america. we're the only country in the world that's come out of every crisis stronger than we went in. the only country in the world. there's nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. not a single thing. this is the united states of america. let's get together and get it done. [cheers] god bless you all and my god protect our troops. thank you, thank you, thank you,. ♪ [applause] this is the guy right here. [cheers] one of the best governors in america. all right. oh, there you are.

thank you, everybody. every time i walk out of my grandfather's house he'd yell joey, keep the faith. let's go spread the faith, guys, thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]