Would you be surprised to learn that the universal healthcare systems in Germany and Japan were designed by the US? It’s true. Here is how it happened there and why it didn’t happen here.

(669 words, three-minute read)

In our Commentary of 11/3, we discussed two ways that Senator Warren’s Medicare for All differs from successful programs in France, Germany, and Japan. Today, we’ve added a third way that her program is different.

Healthcare as an issue is not going away. And it isn’t going to get any less complicated or easier to understand. But try to understand we must if we are to make reasonable choices. Candidate Warren raised the ante this week with a detailed plan for paying for her version of Medicare for All (MFA). It is likely to be hotly debated in the coming weeks. Considering even part of it in a fact-based and rational manner requires more words than normal. But let’s try.

Both the president and Speaker Pelosi have announced their support for negotiating drug prices. Even better, their thinking about the mechanism is similar. So, they agree, but can they reach an agreement? Let’s speculate.

Opponents of universal healthcare quickly seized on a recent estimate by the Mercatus Center that Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All proposal would cost the federal government at least $32 trillion over the next 10 years. Their view is that this estimate provides self-evident proof that we cannot afford it. Is it a sensible argument? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

The ongoing healthcare debate never fails to include reference to this so-called truism—that when polled, Americans who receive employer-based health insurance “like it.” This unchallenged belief determines, and possibly distorts, the contours of the debate on Medicare for All. Given our experience with employer-based healthcare, which is central to the way America obtains healthcare, we struggle to understand how this can be. So, this week we explored the issue and found that our concerns were well founded. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

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.

Axios provides a daily diet of useful headlines and efficient and accurate summaries of the news behind the headline and, in their words, why it matters.

On March 8th, Axios writer Sam Baker provides a bitesize and useful piece entitled “The unique problem with U.S. health care. He does our work for us as we 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.