Weekly Writers Round-Up: Problems with Medicare for All, Candidates’ Silence on Foreign Policy, and Exiting Afghanistan

Each week, we’ll be featuring opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? See here for info on how we can help make that a reality.

The infectious lunacy of socialized medicine by Elise Amez-Droz (Summer 2019) in the Washington Examiner
Over the last few years, healthcare policy has certainly taken the limelight. Sadly, it seems rationality has largely been put to the wayside as people grapple with the idea of socializing our healthcare system entirely. Indeed, we’d be the first nation to do so, but that’s not quite avant-garde enough for some folks’ tastes. A Los Angeles Times columnist, for example, recently pled for “Medicare for all” to extend to pets — “Peticare for all,” as he calls it. Yes, that’s wild, but wild is what we get when logic and coherence are no longer priorities.

Yet, even as insane as “Peticare for all” would be, “Medicare for all” would be just as crazy…

Why are Democrats’ candidates avoiding foreign policy? by Natalie Dowzicky (Summer 2019) in the Washington Times
It’s no secret that the top Democrats have been fixated on domestic issues. It seems advancing their socialism is their number one priority, as they pound the drum of Medicare for All and eliminating student debt — policies with a price tag of trillions of dollars.

Meanwhile, foreign policy has gotten lost in the shuffle. During July’s Democratic debate, it took nearly two hours for a candidate to mention even one war the United States is fighting overseas. It’s almost like, in their minds, being the head of our military isn’t an integral part of the president’s job…

There are no good exit strategies in Afghanistan. The U.S. should still leave. by Jerrod Laber (Fall 2017) in the Orange County Register
U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has been back on the diplomatic circuit in recent weeks, trying to restart U.S.-Taliban peace talks, which President Trump abruptly cancelled via Twitter in September, outraged over an attack that killed an American soldier.

As part of his trip, Khalilzad was seeking a prisoner swap between the Afghan government and the Taliban as a trust-building measure. They did reach a deal that would see several Taliban prisoners handed over in exchange for an American and an Australian, but ABC News has reported that it hasn’t happened yet…