Just my personal opinion but, I thought it was a good debate and each candidate offered his or her views quite well. But, not everything was completely accurate…came damn close but still lacked a few facts:
- Joe Biden:
- “The fact is the vast majority of Democrats do not support Medicare for All.”
- NOPE-Kaiser Family Foundation poll out this week finds 77 percent of Democrats support Medicare for All and 88 percent — support a “public option” proposal such as the one Biden advocates.
- Bernie Sanders:
- US has a health care system “in which we spend twice as much as do the people of any other country.”
- NOPE: “The US spent twice as much per capita on health care last year than the average for Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries, but not twice as much as every single one of the organization’s 35 other members.”
- “What the scientists are telling us is if we don’t get our act together within the next eight or nine years, we’re talking about cities all over the world, major cities going underwater, we’re talking about increased drought, we’re talking about increased extreme weather disturbances.”
- THE FACTS: To be clear, the world’s big cities aren’t going to go underwater for good in as soon as eight to nine years. The Vermont senator’s reference to eight to nine years seems to refer to standard warnings of the expected temperature increases kicking in by roughly 2030, and the progressively worse weather extremes that will keep following.
- Kamal Harris:
- On Tulsi Gabbards appearances on Fox ‘News:’ “During the Obama administration spent four years full time on Fox News” criticizing President Barack Obama.
- MISLEADING- She gave her too much credit: Gabbard did appear on Fox News during the Obama administration, and often criticized the administration’s Middle East policy. But she has appeared much more frequently on Fox News since Donald Trump took office. (Even worse!)
- Andrew Yang:
- There are only two countries in the world that don’t have paid family leave for new moms: the United States of America and Papua New Guinea.”
- True: America ranks behind all other major developed nations when it comes to statutory paid family leave. But Yang’s claim that only the United States and Papua New Guinea offer no paid family leave appears to be based on a report that is more than five years old.
- Elizabeth Warren:
- Today in America — a new study came out — 20 years out, (of) whites who borrowed money, 94 percent have paid off their student loan debt, 5 percent of African Americans have paid it off.”
- THE FACTS: That’s not right. Warren appears to be citing a September report from Brandeis University’s Institute on Assets and Social Policy. The study found that, 20 years after starting college, 49% of white borrowers had paid off their loans entirely (not 94% of them) compared with 26% of black borrowers (not 5%).
