Trump making another trip to Charlotte with a focus on health care
President Donald Trump is coming back to North Carolina this week — and this time he’s planning to talk about health care policy just weeks before the Nov. 3 election.
Trump will visit Charlotte on Thursday “to discuss his administration’s action and vision in delivering quality healthcare at low costs for the American people,” according to a White House official. The official wouldn’t say if Trump will promote a legislative plan, which the president has been promising for years to unveil soon.
Trump, a Republican, has made regular stops in the state — considered a toss-up in his presidential contest with Democratic nominee Joe Biden — since the Republican National Convention, part of which was held in Charlotte. Trump visited Wilmington and held rallies in Winston-Salem and Fayetteville in September.
Biden will make his first in-person appearance in North Carolina on Wednesday.
The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010 under President Barack Obama, faces another challenge at the Supreme Court. Arguments in that case will be held in November after the election.
The death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could alter the outcome of that case. If the Affordable Care Act is struck down, insurance companies would not have to offer insurance to people with preexisting conditions or allow customers under the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance — both popular provisions of the law.
North Carolina is one of 12 states that has not expanded Medicaid under the law.
Trump has been saying for years that he was working on a health care plan of his own, dating back to the 2016 campaign. In a July Fox News interview, Trump said he’d be signing “a full and complete health care plan” within two weeks. He said during an ABC News town hall last week that his proposal was finished.
“I have it all ready,” he said during the televised event.
At his Fayetteville rally on Saturday, Trump promised to pick a woman to replace Ginsburg.
The visit to Charlotte will be the 14th time Trump has visited the state as president.
Trump won North Carolina and its 15 electoral votes in his 2016 Electoral College victory. He likely needs the state in order to win reelection this year. More than 124,000 absentee by mail ballots have been cast in North Carolina already for the 2020 election.
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This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 4:27 PM.
