Director of the NIAID since 1984, Dr. Fauci has become the media darling of the COVID-19 crisis. Clearly masterful at describing the crisis, has he also been masterful at shirking responsibility for it?

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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.

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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.

Speaking to a congressional panel made up primarily of baby boomers, 17-year-old climate activist Jamie Margolis said, “The fact that you are staring at a panel of young people testifying before you today pleading for a livable earth should not fill you with pride, it should fill you with shame.” As one of the boomers, I admit that hurt. But we own this, don’t we? Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.

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.

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.”  

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.