Biden appeals to seniors on healthcare, Social Security in Florida trip

Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden appealed to older voters Tuesday in a half-hour speech focused largely on healthcare at a Florida senior center.

Biden spoke at a senior community center in Pembroke Pines as both he and President Donald Trump focused on battleground states Tuesday. The president was expected to hold a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in the evening.

The former vice president took Trump to task on his attempts to unravel the Affordable Care Act.

"Trump doesn't really care about lowering healthcare costs because he's beholden to health insurance companies and the drug companies," Biden said. "He's asking the United States Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act."

Doing so, he said, would increase prescription drug prices and put Medicare at risk.

Biden also took issue with Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has sickened 7.8 million people and killed 215,000 people in the United States. He quoted Trump, who said during a campaign rally in Ohio last month that the novel coronavirus "affects virtually nobody."

"'Nobody.' Think about that. Who was he talking about when he said it affects virtually nobody? He was talking about America's seniors, he was talking about you. He was talking about my family," Biden said.

"You've worked hard your whole life, contributing to society, building a family, building the country, serving America. You deserve security, you deserve respect and peace of mind. But you're not getting it."

Trump has pushed to permanently eliminate the payroll tax, which funds Social Security and Medicare, if he wins re-election, but Biden says he'd protect those income streams. Trump signed an order earlier this year temporarily halting collection on payroll taxes as part of a coronavirus relief measure.

Biden also pledged to invest $50 billion into research on diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's and and Parkinson's diseases. Biden's son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer shortly before the end of his last term as vice president.