Fact-checking Sanders-Biden debate
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders debated alone for the first time Sunday on a closed Washington television set, jointly criticizing President Donald Trump’s handling of the growing coronavirus crisis while attacking each other over their past votes and statements.
There was a lot for fact-checkers to sort out, including a back-and-forth that centered on us (yes, PolitiFact) and attacks and counter-attacks over the candidates’ statements about Social Security.
Sanders: “We have a lack of medical personnel. And I worry very much that if there is a peak, whether we have the capability of dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who may be in hospitals.”
Sanders is clearly not the only one to worry — and the facts are on his side. Public health experts are sounding the alarm that if the virus infects people quickly, and enough show symptoms, the system will be overwhelmed.
In a March 12 op-ed in the New York Times, health policy experts pointed out that the nation has insufficient hospital beds, even if only 5% of the country contracts the illness. The authors — Ezekiel J. Emanuel at the University of Pennsylvania, James Phillips of George Washington University Hospital and Govind Persad at the University of Denver — specifically pointed to worries about “shortages of medical staff and equipment.”
Those worries are widespread. In New York State, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has suggested temporarily halting elective surgeries and re-certifying retired doctors and nurses. And if the virus afflicts health care workers, too, that would further constrain the system’s capacity.
A February report put out by researchers at Johns Hopkins University tallied 46,500 intensive care unit beds across the entire United States. If the virus spreads at a moderate pace, the researchers estimated, 200,000 Americans would ultimately need ICU beds. A separate Hopkins report found only 160,000 ventilators in the country — enough for a moderate outbreak, but not enough if it spirals into something worse.
Biden: “They (the military) did it in the Ebola crisis. They have done it. They have the capacity to build 500-bed hospitals and tents that are completely safe and secure and provide the help to get it done to this overflow.”
Biden is right that the military added to hospital capacity during previous epidemics, but it’s not clear they were as large or as effective as he said they were.
We asked the Biden campaign for details but didn’t hear back. But there are a couple of potential past examples.
First, the Ebola crisis. While Biden was vice president, the U.S. military helped increase capacity for treatment in Liberia. According to a 2014 White House news release, American efforts to curb the spread of the disease included “build(ing) additional Ebola Treatment Units in affected areas,” “establish(ing) a site to train up to 500 health care providers per week” and sending a “field-deployable hospital to Liberia.”
These stations have been used in previous public health crises, including countless hurricanes over the past 15 years. They are, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an important resource in building the health system’s holding capacity, especially in times of such difficulty.
Biden’s numbers are off, though. These temporary medical facilities can house between 50 and 250 patients and are treated as a stopgap when hospitals overflow. They can provide low-acuity care and other support. But that’s far short of 500-bed hospital equivalents.
Sanders: “You have been on the floor of the Senate time and time again talking about the need to cut Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ programs.”
This leaves out context and ignores Biden’s subsequent positions in opposition to such cuts.
Sanders emphasizes old statements
by Biden, some decades ago, that show a willingness to slow spending in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. (Sanders calls this a “cut.”)
During the 1980s and 1990s, Biden spoke in favor of freezes to Social Security as part of an effort to rein in all spending to reduce the deficit. For instance, Biden said in 1984 that “the only way that Congress will ever be able to come to grips with deficits is by dealing with all federal programs as a package.”
Sanders has also used audio of Biden saying in 1995, “When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veteran’s benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government.”
However, Biden’s focus has changed to protecting Social Security from cuts since he became vice president in 2009.
Biden’s message in the current campaign is that he is firmly against cuts to the program. Sanders has also called for expanding Social Security.
Biden called out Sanders during the debate for an ad “saying I’m opposed to Social Security, that PolitiFact says is a flat lie, and that The Washington Post said is a flat lie.” PolitiFact rated the ad about Biden’s record over 40 years Mostly False.
— Louis Jacobson
Biden: “Are you getting rid of the nine super PACs you have?”
Sanders: “Nine super PACs? I don’t have any super PACs.”
Both Biden and Sanders are exaggerating here.
The Biden camp pointed to a coalition of nine groups that have been widely reported to be supporting Sanders, including the Democratic Socialists of America, the Sunrise Movement, Our
Revolution, the Center Popular Democracy Action, Make the Road Action, People’s Action, Student Action, Progressive Democrats of America, and Dream Defenders.
Officially, only three of the nine groups in the pro-Sanders coalition have a super PAC: Dream Defenders, People’s Action, and Make the Road.
Super PACs proliferated after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case. They can raise and spend unlimited amounts, as long as they don’t directly coordinate with candidates or party committees.
The other groups supporting Sanders are organized in different ways, such as 501(c)4 groups that are regulated by the Internal Revenue Service.
Many of these other groups are unofficially called “dark money” by critics, since there are gaps in transparency about where the money is coming from. But they are not technically super PACs.
Biden, for his part, benefits from the super PAC Unite the Country. Neither candidate, under law, can coordinate with these outside groups.
Biden: “I went out and campaigned for (raising the minimum wage) … $15 an hour in New York City. Go talk to the governor.”
Biden is right about his efforts in New York, despite Sanders’ suggestion that Biden has only “come around” to supporting a $15 hourly minimum wage “since the campaign.”
In 2015, Biden as vice president campaigned with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to boost the state of New York’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, according to the state’s government website. Cuomo eventually signed legislation to gradually increase the hourly minimum wage to $15 for all New Yorkers.
The effort was widely covered by local and national news organizations at the time. During the event with Cuomo, Biden spoke for nearly 30 minutes and called “stagnant wages” the biggest issue facing the economy.