Health care, war in the Middle East and former President Donald Trump divided the four top candidates for California’s U.S. Senate race Monday night as they sparred in their first debate of the cycle.
Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter, as well as Republican businessman and former Dodgers star Steve Garvey, took a debate stage at USC where they traded jabs — and baseball references — for an hour and a half.
It was health care, specifically a question on Medicare for All, that caused the most fireworks among the four.
Porter, who has represented an Orange County district since 2019, expressed her support for what’s been dubbed a Medicare for All system.
“I think we need to pass a health care system that delivers the best quality care with the most choice at the lowest price point,” Porter said, arguing that’s Medicare for All.
Schiff expressed support for an opt-in Medicare for All system, calling it an “efficient … direction we need to go in.”
Health care, Lee said, “should be a human right” and touted her record of supporting single-payer health care initiatives.
Garvey, for his part, said Medicare for All would “be a strain on our economy.” When asked about the Affordable Care Act, Garvey said he believes it works for some.
It was during this time that Porter launched what became an oft-repeated from the debate stage criticism at her Democratic House colleagues: “Career politicians,” she said, hadn’t moved the needle on a better health care system.
“Others can talk about taking on corporations or taking on industries. Some of us have actually done things, gotten things accomplished,” Schiff shot back.
Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, was also the catalyst of some of the more tense moments of the debate Monday.
While Garvey has sought to distance himself from Trump throughout the campaign thus far, that simply wasn’t an option as his three Democratic opponents aligned him…
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