Echoing James Carville’s now famous reminder to the Clinton campaign in 1992 that it is “The Economy, Stupid,” presidential candidates would be well advised that in 2020, it is healthcare, stupid. But not for the reasons you might think. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

As the debate about “Medicare for All” heats up, we will continue to help our readers sift through the noise and find the facts. Our launch point today is a recent editorial appearing in the New York Times by Vin Gupta, assistant professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. His title was “The Unforced Error of Medicare for All, Democrats would be wise to seek reform, not revolution.” In it, Mr. Gupta says the following: “Recent polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that although voters like the concept of Medicare for All, net favorability falls by almost 50 points when they are presented with hard truths such as the higher taxes, less provider choice, and increased wait times that will inevitably result.” “Hard truths?”  We don’t think so. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

Last week, when the federal deficit surpassed $22 trillion, there were several references in the media, most of which observed that no one seemed to care. It was just yesterday that the Republican party, led by Paul Ryan, criticized President Obama on what seemed like a daily basis over the “debt crisis staring us in the face” and for a national debt that was “out of control.” But now, no one seems to care. Larry Kudlow, the director of the President’s National Economic Council, dismissed it as not “a problem.” So what sense are we to make of this? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

For our readers who subscribe to the NY Times, today’s issues has a helpful opinion page article on healthcare by Jamie Daw. Dr. Daw teaches health policy and management at Columbia University. His piece is titled A Better Path to Universal Health Care: The US should look to Germany not Canada, for the best model. In it, Daw does our work for us by responding in a fact-based, rational way to Kamala Harris’ reference to the elimination of insurance companies as part of the creation of “medicare for all.”  

There has been no shortage of vitriol launched on supporters of the Green New Deal, most of which achieves nothing except to impede fact based rational debate.  Our launch point today is Peggy Noonan’s editorial of 2/17 entitled “The Buck Stops Here” in which she dismisses the Green New Deal as “an extreme to the point of absurdist plan.”  At a time when Gallup polling finds that across Democrats, Republicans and Independents, 61% of Americans “Worry a great deal/fair amount about global warming,” 61% “Believe global warming is caused by human activities,” and 42% “Think global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetime,” and given the daily torrent of record flooding, drought, temperatures, coastal erosion, and the like, why can’t we at least talk about it? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

In the renewed debate over healthcare, there will be many distortions in the discussion that will prevent progress for the majority of us who want reform. We dealt with Part One of this folly in my 2/12 post on Insurance Companies. Part Two of this discussion is the role of drug company pricing in the healthcare reform. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

As the Presidential contest begins, the healthcare discussion quickly degrades into the predictable extremes, leaving the majority out.

“Medicare For All” has become a rallying cry for many of the newly announced democratic candidates. What is important about this is that it will relaunch a discussion about the healthcare crisis in the US, if the Republican Party will participate in a rational way. What is NOT important is that the over simplified “Medicare For All” rallying cry be the beginning and end of the discussion. You can expect, however, the well worn arguments to emerge to prevent a fair discussion. The first is the subject of private insurance. Let’s try to fact-based and rational.

When you aggregate polls of Americans across Democrats, Republicans and Independents, 65% support increased gun control. As this article demonstrates, despite this, Democrats still fail to muster the courage to oppose the NRA.