Policy

Democratic debate on healthcare, as told by Twitter and fact checkers

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released details of his “Medicare for all” single-payer healthcare proposal about two hours before the debate, perhaps fueling renewed interest in the Democratic race.

By Neil Versel on January 19, 2016
CHARLESTON, SC - JANUARY 17: Democratic presidential candidates Martin OMalley (L), Hillary Clinton (C) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) participate in the Democratic Candidates Debate hosted by NBC News and YouTube on January 17, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina. This is the final debate for the Democratic candidates before the Iowa caucuses.

CHARLESTON, S.C. – JAN. 17: Democratic presidential candidates Martin O’Malley (L), Hillary Clinton (C) and Sen. Bernie Sanders participate in the Democratic Candidates Debate hosted by NBC News and YouTube on Jan. 17, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina. 

Sunday night’s Democratic presidential debate pulled far better ratings on NBC than the two previous showdowns did on ABC and CBS, respectively, though viewership was still far lower than one on CNN in October. (The Republican debates have done much better, thanks to the size of the field and the strength of the personalities on the GOP side.)

Having the debate on a Sunday night this time — albeit on a long weekend for many — probably helped, since the last to Democratic debates were buried on Saturday nights, when nobody outside the Beltway wants to think about politics. Perhaps, though, interest in this one was buoyed by healthcare, since Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released details of his “Medicare for all” single-payer healthcare proposal about two hours before the debate.

Then this happened:

Even before the debate started, the campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Sanders of flip-flopping on this and on gun control. In 2013, Sanders had proposed a single-payer framework administered by the states, not the federal government.

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During the debate, Clinton defended the Affordable Care Act.

Both leading Democratic candidates — ex-Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley wasn’t given a whole lot of respect or air time — threw out some, shall we say, interesting claims on healthcare.

In claiming that the ACA was working, Clinton said:

Politico noted that this statement  was wrong:

She may have been referring to the fact that health care spending has been growing at historically slow rates in recent years, but it’s still growing—and there are signs that cost growth is picking up again. According to National Health Expenditures data released in December 2014, national health spending grew 3.6 percent in 2013, the lowest annual increase since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began tracking numbers in 1960. But numbers released by CMS just last month show that spending is on the rise again.

Sanders said that the U.S. spends three times more than Britain on healthcare. The New York Times said, “not quite, but close,”  but parsed his words quite a bit:

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, health care in the United States cost about 2.7 times as much per capita as care in Britain in 2012. (That would be almost “three times as high,” not “three times more.”)

PolitiFact called this “true.”

The Times gave Sanders full credit for one statement on healthcare.

That is down substantially from the 48 million to 50 million uninsured in the years before the ACA went into effect.

Sanders may be pulling Clinton to the left on this issue.

That’s created plenty of fodder for Republican candidates. Needless to say, they still see Obamacare as a bogeyman, regardless of cost and uninsured trends.

Sanders threw some serious side eye at Clinton for sure.

 

 

As for the third wheel O’Malley, well …

He did get in one line about healthcare, though it was our friend Dr. Wen Dombrowski, not any of the big news organizations, who mentioned it on Twitter.

Still, arguments aside, the real winner of the debate, if not the whole Internet, was a hand puppet.

Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images