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When The Fact Checker evaluates campaign policy proposals, we’re often reminded of the story of the man who claimed he sold a dog for $50,000. How did he do that? “I traded him for two $25,000 cats,” he replied. Campaign proposals are not easy to fact-check unless you figure out that the numbers don’t add up. But if they do add up, then you are left with experts picking holes in the assumptions that are behind those numbers, which the campaign will vigorously dispute. (Kessler, 11/5)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s call for a Medicare-for-All health plan drew heightened scrutiny from her Democratic presidential rivals after she released a highly anticipated plan to pay for it. Two leading Democratic candidates—former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg —had criticized Ms. Warren’s plan to expand government-run insurance to all Americans. They also found fault with her proposal to pay for it with $20.5 trillion in new funding, largely generated from employers and the wealthy. (Jamerson, 11/4)

Warren’s Democratic primary rivals immediately pounced on her calculation of the cost of Medicare for All, noting that it clocks in much lower than the figure Sen. Bernie Sanders has been citing on the campaign trail — a difference Warren attributes to how her plan would aggressively bargain down the price of prescription drugs, eliminate a huge amount of waste in the system, and slash payments to doctors and hospitals, among other differences. Pete Buttigieg called her $20.5 trillion estimate “controversial,” while Joe Biden’s campaign accused her of “lowballing the cost of her plan by well over $10 trillion while overcounting the revenue that would be gained from the sources she identifies.” (Ollstein, 11/4)

Kaiser Health News: Warren’s Plan On ‘Medicare For All’ Could Raise Concerns Among Health Providers

Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, joined host Scott Simon on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday to talk about the plan released by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for funding the “Medicare For All” health plan she has endorsed. She is calling for the elimination of private insurance and replacing it with a government-sponsored health plan for all residents. Rovner pointed out that the plan, which calls for paying doctors and hospitals at roughly the current Medicare reimbursement rates rather what higher private insurance pays, is bound to raise concerns among those health care providers. (11/4)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s sweeping “Medicare for All” plan is too much of a political reach to actually be implemented on Capitol Hill, according to Jared Bernstein, who used to advise her Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden. “A good question for her is, given neither this nor the next Congress will enact your plan, don’t tell us what you’d like to do. Tell us about what you would do; what you think is in the realm of possible,” Bernstein told CNBC on Monday. “This debate, this is just basically like saying, ‘I’m going to buy a unicorn and I’m going to pay for it with a unicorn.’” (Bursztynsky, 11/4)

The practical stakes of this argument are low. The odds of any kind of Medicare-for-all plan actually being enacted by Congress are slim. And obviously anything a potential President Sanders signed into law would have to be something Sen. Warren voted for and vice versa. But it is worth understanding why these two similar sounding ideas are actually very different in their implications. It underscores that the real challenge of legislating is that you can’t just write down a plan, you need to build a consensus in Congress for your specific approach. (Yglesias, 11/4)

Businessman Andrew Yang said he supports "Medicare for All" but would keep the option of private insurance. CNN's Dana Bash speaks with Yang on the specifics of his plan during the first joint interview with his wife Evelyn. (11/3)