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It says something about the state of the two major political parties that, while Washington was focused on President Trump’s racist tweets and his strategy to divide for political advantage, Democratic presidential candidates were engaged in an increasingly substantive debate about the future of health care. No matter how you feel about former vice president Joe Biden’s plan to build on Obamacare, which he released Monday, or Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare-for-all proposal, which he defended in a speech Wednesday, the Democratic field has already far surpassed Mr. Trump in seriousness. His “plan” to this day has not progressed beyond a promise to destroy Obamacare. (7/18)

There’s a high-profile debate over health care playing out in the presidential race, and a lower-profile one taking place in Congress. Several Democratic presidential candidates are telling us that they are going to provide health care that is free at the point of service to all comers. In little-noticed congressional mark-ups, members of both parties are demonstrating why these promises will not be met.The legislation under consideration is aimed at so-called surprise medical bills” – charges a patient assumes were covered by insurance but turn out not to have been. My family got one last year: The hospital where my wife delivered our son was in our insurer’s network, but an anesthesiologist outside the network assisted. The bill had four digits. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 7/19)

At the top of his Wednesday night program, Fox News host Tucker Carlson apprised viewers that the usual script was getting tossed. “The President is speaking to supporters in Greenville, North Carolina. We will be taking portions of it live, especially the newsworthy moments,” said Carlson, as if the network’s producers could predict newsworthiness. “Right now, he is talking about the four radical freshman Democrats, Antifa, and more broadly, the direction the Democrats are moving. We are going to go back and listen in. It’s interesting.”The “listen in” strategy sure did vacuum up a newsworthy utterance from President Trump: “Better health care. And we’ll also always protect . . . you have to remember this. Are you ready? Because they give us a bum rap,” said Trump. “Patients with preexisting conditions are protected by Republicans much more so than protected by Democrats who will never be able to pull it off.” (Erik Wemple, 7/18)

I regret to inform you that a death may be in the offing. Obamacare’s “Cadillac tax” is facing a bipartisan congressional firing squad. The House voted on Wednesday to repeal it, and the Senate may follow suit. Someday soon, the tax may slip into the political boneyard without ever taking effect.In case you aren’t steeped in the Affordable Care Act’s wonky details, the Cadillac tax is a 40 percent excise on expensive health-care plans. The policy was unlovable, opaque and oddly structured. Yet it earned grudging wonk respect, even from ideological opponents, because it was the first serious attempt to curtail the tax break for employer-sponsored health insurance. (Megan McArdle, 7/18)

Liberal comedian Jon Stewart is no fan of Rand Paul. After the Kentucky senator's decision to object to a unanimous consent authorization of healthcare funding for 9/11 first responders on Wednesday, Stewart blasted him as “absolutely outrageous” and lamented his decision as “fiscal responsibility virtue signaling.” Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York accused Paul of “turning his back on our first responders.”Meanwhile, coverage from news outlets across the political spectrum made it seem as if Paul single-handedly denied our heroes healthcare, and #RandPaulHatesAmerica started trending on Twitter. The outrage is completely unwarranted, and in fact it amounts to a vicious smear against the senator. (Brad Polumbo, 7/18)

For individuals suffering with end-stage liver disease, liver transplants — true miracles of modern medicine — can save their lives. Yet every day in the U.S., seven people die while waiting for a liver transplant. Many more die awaiting hearts, kidneys, and other organs.We have the technology, the high-tech operating rooms, the highly skilled clinical and surgical teams, all standing by. What we don’t have is enough organs. (Yuri Genyk, 7/19)

I managed to get through college in the 1980s without smoking marijuana. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s that I decided to give it a try.The anti-nausea medicine I was taking to combat the side effects of chemotherapy made me feel like I was going to jump out of my skin and it didn’t banish my queasiness. So I took matters into my own hands and asked a friend for some marijuana. At the time, possessing it or using it was illegal, and there was a stigma around its use. It felt like I had a dirty little secret.That said, when I smoked it, I felt great. My nausea disappeared, my appetite came back, and I slept like a baby. My two biggest regrets were that I didn’t use it more consistently during my illness and that I hadn’t tried it the first time I had cancer, eight years earlier. (Shari Berman, 7/19)

Our bungalow was still dark when my cellphone rang at 5 a.m. My husband and I had escaped for a much needed yoga retreat on the remote island of Koh Phangan, Thailand, when I got the phone call no parent ever expects to get — a call that four years of medical school, three years of pediatric residency training and 15 years of practicing pediatrics hadn’t prepared me for. At the sound of the middle school principal’s voice, my heart started racing. “We know you are away and it is early, but we had to call you.” They had called my parents to pick up my middle child from school. “He told us he has been hurting himself because he has a secret that he doesn’t know how to tell you. He thinks he is a girl.” (Paria Hassouri, 7/19)