President Biden discusses lowering costs for families in Orange County visit
With the midterm election less than a month away, President Joe Biden made an appearance in Orange County, where he delivered remarks on lowering costs for American families.
Biden’s speech focused largely on the Inflation Reduction Act, which he touted for capping medical costs for families and fighting back against pharmaceutical companies raising drug prices.
“It’s just not right,” an impassioned Biden said. “This year, drug companies alone raised the price — more than 1,200 drugs — this year. This calendar year, raised the price of 1,200 drugs above the rate of inflation.
“Not a single additional bit of information was injected into that drug, not any more experimentation, nothing new. Same exact drug. Same drug, and it gets increased.”
Katie Porter (D-Irvine), locked in a race to defend her congressional seat against Republican Scott Baugh, was equally fiery in opening the press conference.
“Prices have been skyrocketing and families have been hurting,” Porter said. “It’s not just no accident. Prices are going up because Big Pharma has been pushing them higher. Corporate executives handcuffed Americans with higher costs using their lobbyists to get a giveaway that said Medicare can’t negotiate lower drug prices.
“The result is that all of us as patients and as taxpayers have been getting ripped off. No more. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices is good for patients, good for families and good for taxpayers.”
Biden gave the address at Irvine Valley College, where some protesters and a large crowd rallying for rights in Iran showed up hours in advance.
Those demonstrating for freedoms in Iran brought signage and shirts referencing Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman whose death in the custody of Iranian authorities sparked protests in the Middle Eastern country.
“Last month in Iran, the morality police arrested a young Kurdish woman because of the hijab,” Robin Shahini said. “Within the custody, whether they tortured her, whatever happened, we don’t know yet, she died. She got murdered by the morality police.
“This incident wake up the Iranian people, and they came in the street to demonstrate because they don’t want this regime.”
Shahini added that hundreds of cars brought attention to the cause via a caravan from San Diego to Los Angeles.
The president acknowledged the Iranian demonstrators at the beginning of his remarks.
“It stunned me what it awakened in Iran,” Biden said. “It’s awakened something I don’t think will be quieted in a long, long time. I want to thank you all for speaking out.”
With inflationary costs applying pressure in Southern California homes, some are calling on the administration to take care of the American people.
“Right now, there is a lot of poverty,” Cecilia Garcia of Irvine, among a group of protesters standing along a campus entrance off Irvine Center Drive, said. “It’s not wonderful living in the United States. It’s not a dream anymore. I can have two jobs, working all day. Just the price of the gas, the food, everything increased, everything, and the salary is not any better.”
Ginnery Zhang, 17, a student at Irvine Valley College, had come to campus in hopes of seeing the president. She named issues important to her, including abortion, and said she felt the president’s interests aligned with hers.
“I support abortion,” Zhang said. “I support certain things, and I feel Joe Biden supports those things, too, so that’s why I want to come here. I really want the government to focus on the … low-income family issues, so that’s why I would come here.”
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