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What is your answer to the high cost of healthcare?
While there’s no single solution, simply subsidizing exponentially increasing insurance premiums will not work. There are several proposals that would reduce healthcare costs. States should abolish certificate of need laws, which reduce competition among hospitals. Patent reform would prevent drugmakers from gaming the system by tweaking their formulas slightly to avoid generic competition. Allowing insurers to offer greater discounts for young people would encourage more healthy people to purchase insurance, which would reduce premiums for everyone. The reason healthcare costs so much is largely because our healthcare system is not a free market; reforms to encourage competition would improve that.
Advocates of single-payer healthcare systems often argue that we could save money by adopting such a system, but it’s not that simple. For starters, one of the reasons we have higher costs is because our doctors are paid significantly more. Doctors in the US make three times as much as doctors in France, for example. It would be extremely hard politically - not to mention unfair, given that many doctors have hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical school loans - to cut their salaries in half or more. That’s true regardless of the type of healthcare system we have.
“The system could be run more efficiently by reducing slack, but this would make people wait longer for many tests and treatments, as Canadians and Brits do… The government could mandate lower drug prices, which would result in Americans losing access to medicines that aren’t worth making at the mandated price, as well as many that aren’t yet developed.” Canada has universal healthcare, but thousands travel to the US for care each year to avoid long wait times.
Obamacare promised to reduce medical costs, and had several mechanisms to do so. None of them worked. Not increased preventative care. Not the creation of accountable care organizations. Not reducing the number of uninsured people. Not an attempt to prevent Medicare patients from being readmitted to hospitals (which may have ended up killing thousands of people in the process). There is no free lunch, in healthcare or anything else.
My conservative father is a clever and good man, but he's obsessed with Elon Musk of late, and thinks Grokipedia is better than Wikipedia because Wikipedia has a liberal bias. But Grokipedia is an AI that's pulling Wikipedia articles, among other things. Why does my father think Grok is somehow going to be a superior product?
Studies have found political bias in Wikipedia. These concerns are shared by one of its co-founders. While it’s too soon to tell how accurate Grokipedia will be, if it works to counteract liberal bias in Wikipedia then it has the potential to be a more neutral source. Elon Musk has a well-deserved reputation for attempting the impossible and, in at least some cases, accomplishing it. If anyone can fix Wikipedia’s bias, it’s him.
Okay, let's say Trump were to hypothetically disappear. How would that change the tone of this administration? How do you think Vance would run things differently?
If he becomes president, Vance will likely continue most of the same policies. He will tweet significantly less and also focus more on policy details. On foreign policy, Vance may sideline defense hawks; he was skeptical of the decision to strike the Houthis in Yemen, and has been critical of aid to Ukraine. Vance, unlike Trump (and most other politicians), also comes from a humble background. In short, Vance would give us Trumpism with more competence and less inflammatory rhetoric.
My grandparents and dad are very conservative and watch Fox News pretty much nonstop. They often complain about the cities I’ve lived in (Boston/DC) being crime-riddled and brush me off when I counter softly. I know I can’t change their minds and that’s totally fine, but how do I get them to open up to at least listen to a counter argument?
Rather than just citing facts, it may be more helpful to look at the broader context. While crime rates in cities are down this year, they are significantly higher than in rural areas. For example, there’s approximately a 1 in 161 chance of being the victim of a violent crime in Boston, compared to 1 in 523 for Wyoming. You can point out that 1 in 161 is still pretty low - most people will never be the victim of a crime - while acknowledging that it’s higher than some other areas.
You may also try reframing the conversation entirely. Every decision has tradeoffs; urban areas might have higher crime rates, but they also have greater job opportunities, easier access to cultural and entertainment centers, and maybe your friend/social group, etc. Tell them about a wonderful weekend you had in your city, and help them see that there are pros and cons to every location. Finally, we encourage you to check out the resources we provide at the end for managing difficult conversations.
What does Democratic Socialism mean to you?
Government should work for everyone, not just the elites. It often seems that both of our main parties - but especially the Republicans - care more about wealthy donors than the working class. Thus we see massive tax cuts for the rich paired with draconian cuts to benefits for the poor. Corporations are allowed to increase profits and pay their CEOs millions while workers receive wages so low that their employees rely on food stamps to survive, and then we go ahead and cut food stamps while giving said corporations tax breaks.
Instead of taking from the poor to give to the rich, we should tax the rich a little more in order to help the poor. Some programs to think about include free buses (NYC is all the rage but Iowa did it first!), universal preschool, and free college. Public schools and Social Security should be strengthened, not privatized.
Socialism is “a system where the government empowers workers to have a say in the economy and provides people with health care, housing, free education, a clean environment, and assistance to those in financial need.” It is not a rejection of capitalism itself, but a reaction against the current “crony capitalism” which allows the wealthy to get even richer while exploiting everyone else.
Why do you want universal healthcare? Won’t it be too expensive?
How will you fix healthcare costs while letting me keep my doctor?
Healthcare is already expensive; universal healthcare would actually decrease costs. The US currently spends nearly twice as much on healthcare as similar countries with different systems. This isn’t because we see our doctors more often - Americans actually receive less care than people in other wealthy countries - but because our costs are so much more. “The United States spends over $1,000 per person on administrative costs — approximately five times more than the average of other wealthy countries.” Despite higher costs, we have worse outcomes on nearly every metric. One study, for example, found “that a single-payer, universal health-care system is likely to lead to a 13% savings in national health-care expenditure, equivalent to more than US$450 billion annually” while also saving 68,000 lives.
It’s true that universal healthcare would require additional taxes, but most people would still be better off, because the additional taxes would be less than what they’re paying now in private insurance premiums. Furthermore, as the single payer, the government would have more scope to keep prices down by reducing payments to doctors and hospitals.
Some specifics may change, but everyone should be able to keep their doctors: all doctors would be covered by the new system, rather than just the ones in a single insurer’s network. “Our employer-based insurance system is the way it is because of World War II wage freezes and I.R.S. tax policy, not the will of the founders. And much of health care is regulated at the state level, so our size isn’t really an outlier. We could change things if we wanted to.” The US is the only high-income country that does not provide health insurance for everyone; we can fix that while also reducing costs.
Why do you support men in women’s sports? Isn’t it fundamentally unfair?
While male and female bodies do have some differences, that’s true of bodies in general: we don’t have separate basketball leagues for short men, for example. It’s also important to highlight that sports, particularly during school and college, are not merely about winning. “Playing sports comes with well-known academic, emotional, mental, and social benefits. That’s why we include athletic opportunities as part of educational programs - because sports help young folks learn important physical and social skills that benefit our society.”
“Student-athletes report lower levels of anxiety and depression, higher levels of self-esteem and self-confidence, and better grades and higher levels of academic performance. Both sports and extracurricular activity participation are associated with school connectedness, which in turn is associated with reduced risk behaviors, higher grades and graduation rates, and lower levels of suicidality and poor mental health.”
Athletics are an integral part of the education system, and denying transgender students access to athletics prevents them from receiving the same education as other students, merely because of their gender identity. “High school-aged transgender and non-binary student-athletes reported higher grades, lower levels of depression, and were less likely to feel unsafe at school than those who did not play sports.”
Opponents of allowing transgender athletes to participate in sports highlight a few extreme cases, but in practice transgender people make up a tiny proportion of student athletes. Concerns about fairness have to be balanced with the need for inclusivity, particularly given the many tangible benefits that sports participation provides.
One of our left-leaning contributors adds: I support transgender people and will affirm whatever gender identity they choose. But male and female bodies really are different, and it’s unfair to cisgender women to ask them to compete against individuals who were born male. Research shows that men have a significant advantage in many sports, which can be mitigated but not eliminated through hormone therapy. This is basic common sense which is shared by the majority of the country.
Why do you support men in women's bathrooms and locker rooms?
Research has shown that transgender people do not pose a danger while using the bathrooms of their choice. In fact, requiring transgender people to use the bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth has been shown to cause increased harassment or even assault (for example, an individual born female but identifying as and looking like a man, using a women’s bathroom). “In order to avoid negative experiences in restrooms, transgender people report avoiding going to the bathroom when needed, not going to specific public places because of a lack of safe bathrooms, and avoiding going out in public at all.”
“A 2019 LGBTQ Teen Study, an anonymous survey of more than 3,600 youth ages 13 to 17, revealed that transgender and nonbinary teens face a higher risk of sexual assault when forced to use bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t match their gender identity: ‘36% of transgender or gender-nonbinary students with restricted bathroom or locker room access reported being sexually assaulted in the last 12 months.’” In other words, there’s no evidence that transgender people are a danger, but copious evidence that they are themselves put in danger when denied access to the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice.
Just as we’ve abandoned the rigid stereotypical gender roles (e.g., women cooking and cleaning at home, men working in factories) that once permeated our society, there’s no reason we can’t make room for different gender identities. Transgender people deserve respect and safety, and that includes allowing them to use the bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identities.
One of our left-leaning contributors adds: The whole history of human civilization is examining once seemingly unthinkable notions about the human body and cognition. In 1900 - just over 100 years ago - the world’s life expectancy was only 32 years. The first organ transplant - of a kidney - happened only in 1954, and now we’re on the verge of growing customized replacement organs. The first in vitro baby was born less than 50 years ago; the procedure now accounts for 1 in 37 births in the US.
Doctors “once believed that women’s nerves were too highly strung for them to receive an education and that their ovaries would become inflamed if they read too much.” The first time a woman officially ran a marathon was in 1967, and she did so against the advice of her doctors, who believed that women’s bodies were too weak to run such a long distance. It wasn’t until 1993 that women began to be systematically included in clinical trials.
In other words, both societal attitudes and science are constantly evolving. While changing sex or gender might seem strange or even unnatural today, that’s been true of many practices that we now take for granted.
What causes some liberals to become so angry when one says he or she is a Christian?
Christianity, fairly or unfairly, is now coded as right-wing. Evangelical Christians are a strong and vocal constituency within the Republican party. We see clips on social media of church sermons that are indistinguishable from speeches at MAGA rallies. Christians are more likely than the average US adult to argue that homosexuality should not be accepted by society and that abortion should be illegal.
While it’s certainly true that not all Christians share such views, individuals from marginalized populations (e.g., LGBTQ+) have repeatedly seen religion used to justify discrimination against them. It’s understandable that they would be skeptical of a belief system that condemns them for who they are. That said, Christians are becoming more accepting - a majority now say that homosexuality should be accepted by society - which is an encouraging development.
We hope you enjoyed our Q&A series, and wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
Here are some resources to improve contentious holiday conversations while enjoying turkey:
And for those of you looking to avoid politics, here are some suggestions:
