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.

Climate Change Canard: How can it be so cold if the earth is getting warmer?

Following the Senator’s announcement that she is running for President, President Trump tweeted: “Amy Klobuchar...talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard of snow, ice and freezing temperatures. Bad timing. By the end of her speech she looked like a Snowman (woman)! This commonly repeated canard, a particular favorite of the President, demonstrates ignorance of the issue of climate change. Let’s try to be 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.