Here’s what I’d like to see the moderators ask tonight:
If market forces, more options, and greater transparency don’t work in the healthcare system, how do you explain the significant drop in drug- and other health-related inflation since the Trump administration began its rulemaking encouraging market forces, more options and greater transparency?
To steal a question my colleague Tiana Lowe asked on Twitter: The United States comprises 4% of the world’s population but produces 44% of its medical R&D. How do you replace that after you’ve ended our for-profit healthcare system?
If government-run health are is such a good answer, why is the Veterans Administration system so messed up, and why is Medicaid care so often substandard?
If you want to provide taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegal immigrants, how would you suggest the U.S. Treasury find the money for it?
If conservative ideas like lower taxes, less regulation, and empowerment zones are bad for black Americans, why is black unemployment at historically low levels during a time when these ideas have taken effect?
You say socialist economics can work in a democratic country, citing Scandinavia as an example. But then why was Sweden an economic basket case until it adopted supply-side and free-market reforms in the 1990s?
If you favor reparations for slavery, how do you intend to pay for them? How do you decide who qualifies for the benefits? Should a second-generation Italian American whose family never owned slaves pay taxes for reparations to a second-generation African-American whose family had never been enslaved?
Do you accept or reject the idea that our rights were endowed by our creator and that they predate government? Or do you believe that they are granted by government — or, as Justice Elena Kagan once said about free-speech rights, that they are for the governor to, quote, “dole out,” at the government’s discretion?
Do you agree with laws that make it a separate criminal offense if an assault kills a nearly full-term baby? If so, then why is it considered a full human person in that case, but not if a doctor does it by means of an abortion?
Would you support a law that makes it illegal to withhold care, or to proactively end the life of, a child delivered alive despite an attempted abortion?
Do you believe a Muslim cake artist who refuses to produce a cake for a Jewish wedding should be penalized for a civil rights violation? If not, why should a Christian cake artist be penalized for not working for a homosexual marriage? Where is the line to be drawn between freedom of expression and compelled speech?
Do you believe that an essential part of good immigration policy involves acculturation into an American melting pot and acceptance of the American creed outlined in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution? Or do you think that very conception is somehow bigoted?
