California

Vice President Biden Praises Medical Manufacturing Firm for Innovation

NEWARK, Calif. - Vice President Joe Biden traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area Thursday and visited a medical equipment company for a discussion about health care.

The White House said Biden visited a Newark factory that produces inexpensive, portable diagnostic blood tests.

After the visit to the plant for Theranos, a Palo Alto-based company, Biden held a round table discussion on health care.

Theranos recently got FDA approval for its blood test aiming to give people a faster and cheaper way to test for a wide variety of diseases.

"Being able to make a dramatic reduction in cost, we can begin to make healthcare more accessible at a time when it matters most," Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes said.

Holmes started Theranos 10 years ago. The company wants to eventually let people take blood tests where they live.

Biden's visit to the Bay Area Thursday follows a stop in Los Angeles, where on Wednesday he toured a factory of bathroom accessories and spoke about raising the federal minimum wage.

Biden said the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour, should grow to at least $12. He said that would raise the standard of living for 35 million people.

Los Angeles County supervisors this week voted to draft a law raising minimum pay to $15 an hour by 2020.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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