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The struggle between capitalism and socialism is back. “America will never be a socialist country,” President Trump tells us, even as Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez champion democratic socialism. At the same time, a consensus is growing — from Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge fund manager, to Joseph Stiglitz, the economist and Nobel winner — that capitalism needs major reforms if it is going to survive. Perhaps surprisingly, given the trend toward the privatization of public services over the last generation, American history offers a way forward: the public option. (Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne L. Alstott, 7/6)

Shhh! Don’t tell the insurance companies (it’s a secret).That’s the logic of the presidential candidates who are pushing a “public option,” also known as Medicare for Those Who Want It. They claim that adding a Medicare-like option onto the health insurance marketplace is an easier political lift than real Medicare for All, and that such an option would thrive in the free market and open the door for Medicare for All. Then the insurance industry would admit defeat and quietly ride off into the sunset, finally achieving what should have been done in the first place. The fact that the insurance industry is lobbying hard for this circuitous incremental approach should tell you all you need to know. (Ed Weisbart, 7/4)

“Medicare for all” was a central theme in the initial Democratic debates and promises to be a defining issue in the primaries. While nearly all the candidates support expanded access, they should be pressed on another crucial question: How will they reduce the burdens involved in dealing with the interwoven public and private insurance systems that provide our health care coverage? As parents of a child with a disability caused by a rare genetic syndrome, we’ve wasted hundreds of hours sorting out enrollment choices, completing unending forms and engaging in maddeningly repetitious conversations, all to ensure that our daughter receives the care she needs and that we don’t get stuck with financially devastating bills. (Pamela Herd and Donald P. Moynihan, 7/4)

If nutritious meals can provide the same kind of benefit as medication, then why don’t health plans cover the cost of medically tailored meals, just as they cover prescription medications? It’s a question my colleagues and I at Community Servings, a nonprofit organization that provides nutritious meals for people with critical illnesses who are too sick to feed themselves or their families, have been wrestling with for years. (David B. Waters, 7/5)

The nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea have been a primary concern to world security for more than a decade. But there is another significant worldwide threat to consider — bioweapons. And with the advent of genetic editing — where the DNA or RNA of a virus or bacteria can be modified to form a deadly weapon — the terrorist arsenal of weapons could be about to change for the worse. (Marc Siegel, 7/7)

“He had the heart of a servant. You knew from the start he would lay down his life for anybody, and that’s exactly what he did.” That’s how Christi Dewar described employee Ryan Keith Cox, who lost his life in a recent mass shooting at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. The last words courageous Cox spoke to colleague Dewar were “I’ve got to see if anybody needs help. Barricade the door.” Cox boldly acted to protect co-workers and was shot dead 10 feet away, outside the barricaded door. Contrast Cox’s heroic bravery with that of Virginia state Sen. Glen H. Sturtevant Jr. (R-Richmond), my family’s lackluster representative. (Karen E. Peters, 7/5)

Homelessness has come to California’s public colleges, just as it has to every other institution in the state. In the community college system, a recent report found that 19% of nearly 40,000 students surveyed had been homeless at some point during the previous year. Some community college campuses have food banks, and all are required by law to make showers in their athletic facilities available to homeless students. But few of the 114 community college campuses offer housing to any of their 2.1 million students, let alone homeless ones. So Assemblyman Marc Berman (D-Palo Alto) has come up with a creative idea: Why not let homeless students who live in their cars park overnight on campus? Although that’s not a solution for homelessness, it would offer a short-term fix for homeless students with cars who are already working on a long-term answer — getting a college degree to broaden their options and increase their earning power. (7/8)

In 2012, the US Department of Justice issued guidelines for federal, state, and local correctional systems designed to dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, sexual violence in prison. But here in Massachusetts, the law is often abused by corrections officials to target LGBTQ inmates. A new bill now before the Legislature could help change that. (Cox and Cahill, 7/2)