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The Big Policy Debates, Explained

Single-payer health care, abolishing prisons and ICE, defunding the police, and whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza: what each means, the facts, the best case on each side and what Americans think.

Last reviewed: October 2026. Figures change; each one below names its source and date.

Some of the loudest arguments in American politics are about proposals and charges that sound simple on a sign but are complicated in practice. For each one below we explain what supporters actually mean, the facts both sides should agree on, the strongest arguments for and against, and what the public thinks. We don't take a side. The goal is that you can explain the other side's view in a way they would recognize.

On this page: Single-payer health care · Abolishing prisons · Abolishing ICE · Defunding the police · Israel, Gaza and genocide · Where to read more

Single-payer health care ("Medicare for All")

What it means

One public plan pays for everyone's medical care, funded by taxes instead of premiums. Doctors and hospitals mostly stay private; only the payer changes. Canada and Taiwan work this way. The Medicare for All bills in Congress would cover every U.S. resident, drop premiums and most deductibles and copays, and largely replace private insurance over about four years. Most wealthy countries reach universal coverage in other ways, too: Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands use regulated private insurers, and the U.K. runs its own hospitals.

Facts both sides should agree on

  • The U.S. spent about $5.3 trillion on health care in 2024, or 18% of GDP and $15,474 per person (CMS), far more than any other wealthy country.
  • About 7.9% of Americans, roughly 26.7 million people, went all of 2025 without health insurance (Census Bureau).
  • Most working-age Americans get coverage through an employer, so a switch to single-payer would change coverage for well over 150 million people.

What it would cost

Estimates vary because they depend on how much the plan pays hospitals and doctors.

  • Congressional Budget Office (2020–2022): across five designs, federal spending would rise by $1.5–3 trillion in 2030 alone. Total national health spending, counting what families and employers no longer pay, would range from about $700 billion lower to $300 billion higher that year.
  • Mercatus Center (2018, market-oriented): at least $32.6 trillion in new federal spending over ten years. Under the bill's own assumption that providers are paid at Medicare rates, total national spending would be slightly lower, which both sides quoted.
  • Urban Institute (2019): about $34 trillion in new federal spending over ten years.
  • The Lancet (2020, Galvani et al.): about 13% lower national spending (roughly $450 billion a year) and more than 68,000 fewer deaths a year. Critics note it assumes large savings on administration and provider payments.

The case for

  • Everyone is covered, and coverage no longer depends on a job.
  • One payer cuts billing and paperwork costs and can negotiate lower prices.
  • It ends surprise bills and medical debt, and it pays for itself in part by replacing premiums.

The case against

  • It needs large new taxes. Even if most families come out ahead, many would see their taxes rise.
  • It ends private plans that most insured people say they're satisfied with.
  • Paying hospitals closer to Medicare rates could strain them, especially in rural areas, and single-payer systems such as Canada's are known for long waits for specialists and elective surgery.
  • Middle-ground options exist: a public option, lowering the Medicare age, or expanding ACA subsidies.

What Americans think

In KFF's September 2026 poll, 66% favored a national Medicare-for-all plan and 34% opposed it, the highest support KFF has recorded. That included 84% of Democrats and 72% of independents, while 66% of Republicans were opposed. Support swings with the details: it rose to about three in four when people heard it would guarantee coverage and eliminate premiums, and fell to about one in three when they heard it could raise taxes, and to about one in four when they heard it could delay tests or treatment.

Abolishing prisons

What it means

Prison abolition is a movement, associated with groups such as Critical Resistance and writers such as Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Mariame Kaba, that aims to end society's reliance on prisons over time. Most advocates describe a long-term goal: shrink incarceration step by step while investing in violence prevention, mental-health and addiction care, housing and restorative justice. It is different from mainstream criminal-justice reform, which keeps prisons but changes sentencing, bail and reentry. The bipartisan First Step Act, signed by President Trump in 2018, is an example of reform.

Facts both sides should agree on

  • Nearly 2 million people are locked up in the U.S. on a given day, the highest rate of any independent democracy (Prison Policy Initiative, 2025). Another 2.9 million are on probation and 671,000 on parole.
  • Local jails hold about 655,000 people, and over 450,000 of them haven't been convicted. Most are awaiting trial.
  • About 366,000 people are held for drug offenses.
  • But most people in state prisons, about 63% in 2021, are serving time for a violent offense (Bureau of Justice Statistics). Releasing everyone held for drugs alone would not end mass incarceration.
  • Of people released from state prisons in 2005, 83% were arrested again within nine years (BJS).

The case for

  • Prisons often fail at rehabilitation, as the rearrest rates suggest, and can make people more likely to reoffend.
  • The U.S. incarcerates far more people than peer democracies without being clearly safer. A National Research Council review (2014) found the growth in incarceration had diminishing returns on crime.
  • Money spent on prisons could fund prevention that stops harm before it happens. Incarceration falls hardest on poor and Black communities.

The case against

  • Some people commit serious violence repeatedly, and removing them from the community prevents harm. No alternative has been shown to protect the public from them at scale.
  • Victims and their families deserve accountability, and many see prison as part of justice.
  • Abolition is far outside public opinion. Targeted reforms, such as shorter drug sentences, better reentry and alternatives for people with mental illness, have broader support and stronger evidence.

Abolishing ICE

What it means

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003, after the Homeland Security Act of 2002 broke up the old Immigration and Naturalization Service. It has two main parts. Enforcement and Removal Operations arrests, detains and deports people inside the country. Homeland Security Investigations handles crimes such as human trafficking, child exploitation, drug smuggling and financial crime. (The Border Patrol is part of a different agency, Customs and Border Protection.) "Abolish ICE" became a progressive rallying cry in 2018. Supporters disagree on what should replace it: some want to end most interior deportations and detention, others want to move ICE's duties to other agencies with new rules.

Facts both sides should agree on

  • The 2025 budget law (the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act") gave ICE about $75 billion in extra money over four years, including $45 billion for detention and nearly $30 billion for arrests and deportations, out of roughly $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement (CBS News). ICE had previously been funded for about 41,500 detention beds.
  • ICE held 60,311 people on April 4, 2026, down from a peak of 68,289 in early February. About 71% had no criminal conviction (TRAC, Syracuse University). That figure includes people with pending charges, and being in the country without permission is usually a civil violation, not a crime.

The case for

  • Detention and deportation have grown sharply and now mostly affect people with no criminal record, including long-time residents with U.S.-citizen families.
  • Reports of deaths, poor conditions and wrongful detentions, including of U.S. citizens, point to an agency that critics say can't be fixed with small changes.
  • Investigations of trafficking and smuggling could move to agencies such as the FBI, the DEA or a separate unit.

The case against

  • Any country needs to enforce its immigration laws. Abolishing the agency without a replacement would leave court-ordered removals unenforced.
  • HSI does serious criminal work that would be disrupted.
  • Opponents argue the problem is policy set by Congress and the president, not the agency, and that changing the laws or the agency's priorities is the honest fix.

What Americans think

Support has grown. In the Economist/YouGov poll of February 27–March 2, 2026, 50% supported abolishing ICE and 39% opposed it, the first time support reached half. Independents were 52% in favor, and 68% of Republicans were opposed.

Defunding the police

What it means

The slogan spread after George Floyd's murder in 2020, and it means different things to different people. For many it means moving some money from police to mental-health responders, social workers and violence-prevention programs, so that armed officers don't handle every call. For some it means cutting police budgets substantially, and for a smaller group it means abolishing police. In 2021, Minneapolis voters rejected a plan to replace their police department with a new Department of Public Safety, about 56% to 44%.

Facts both sides should agree on

  • Murders rose about 30% in 2020, the largest one-year increase in modern records (FBI data, via Pew). They have fallen since. In 35 large cities tracked by the Council on Criminal Justice, homicides fell 21% in 2025 compared with 2024, ending 25% below 2019 and 44% below the 2021 peak.
  • Many cities that cut police budgets in 2020, including Minneapolis, Austin and Los Angeles, later restored or raised them.

What the evidence says

  • More police officers reduce homicides. A study of 242 cities (Chalfin, Hansen, Weisburst and Williams, 2022) found that each additional officer prevents about 0.1 homicides a year, and that per person the benefit is about twice as large for Black residents as for white residents. The same study found more officers also make more arrests for low-level offenses, which fall disproportionately on Black residents.
  • Unarmed responders can help with some calls. In Denver's STAR program, which sends health workers instead of police to certain calls, reports of the targeted low-level crimes fell 34% in the areas it served (Dee and Pyne, Science Advances, 2022).

The case for

  • Police spend much of their time on calls about mental illness, homelessness and addiction that they aren't trained for, and some end in avoidable deaths.
  • Investing in housing, treatment and violence interrupters can prevent crime rather than react to it.

The case against

  • Fewer officers means more violent crime, and the victims are disproportionately in poor and Black neighborhoods, as the research above shows.
  • The 2020–2021 crime spike made the slogan a political liability, and most Democratic leaders rejected it.
  • Better training, accountability and co-responder programs can be added without cutting police.

What Americans think

Few Americans want less police funding. In Pew's 2021 survey, 15% wanted spending on police in their area decreased (down from 25% in 2020), and 47% wanted it increased. Among Black adults, 23% wanted a decrease and 38% an increase.

Israel, Gaza and the genocide question

What the debate is about

Since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza that followed, UN investigators, major human-rights groups and many scholars have concluded that Israel committed genocide. Israel, the U.S. government under both President Biden and President Trump, and other scholars reject that conclusion. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide means certain acts, such as killing members of a group or deliberately inflicting conditions of life meant to destroy it, committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The core dispute is about intent: under the International Court of Justice's past rulings, intent can be inferred from a pattern of conduct only if it is the only reasonable inference.

Facts both sides should agree on

  • On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led fighters killed about 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages.
  • Gaza's Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, reports more than 74,000 Palestinians killed as of October 2026. It doesn't separate civilians from fighters. UN agencies consider its records generally reliable, and independent studies, including one in The Lancet, suggest it undercounts. The Israeli military said in mid-2024 that it had killed more than 17,000 militants, a figure others dispute.
  • About 90% of Gaza's roughly 2.1 million people were displaced at least once (UN). In August 2025 the UN-backed IPC confirmed famine in and around Gaza City, the first ever declared in the Middle East. Israel rejected the finding.
  • A U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025. All 20 living hostages were freed that month, and the remains of the last hostage were recovered in January 2026. Israeli strikes have continued: Gaza's Health Ministry counted more than 1,100 deaths after the ceasefire by late September 2026.

Where the legal cases stand

  • International Court of Justice: South Africa sued Israel under the Genocide Convention in December 2023. In January 2024 the court found some of South Africa's claims "plausible" and ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts and let aid in. It did not rule that genocide was happening and did not order an end to the war. Israel filed its defense in March 2026, and further filings are due in 2027 and 2029, so a final ruling is years away.
  • International Criminal Court: In November 2024 the court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for the war crime of starvation and for crimes against humanity, and for Hamas commander Mohammed Deif. The warrants don't charge genocide. Israel rejects the court's jurisdiction, and the U.S. has sanctioned ICC officials.
  • Investigators and rights groups (not courts): Amnesty International (December 2024), Human Rights Watch ("acts of genocide," December 2024), the Israeli groups B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (July 2025), the International Association of Genocide Scholars (86% of members who voted, August 2025) and a UN Commission of Inquiry (September 2025) all concluded that Israel has committed genocide.

The case that it is genocide

  • The scale of the killing, displacement and destruction of homes, hospitals and water systems, together with the famine.
  • Statements by Israeli leaders, such as Gallant announcing a "complete siege" against "human animals" in October 2023. The UN commission called such statements direct evidence of intent.
  • Limits on food, water, fuel and medicine that, critics argue, can only be explained as an effort to make Gaza unlivable.

The case that it is not

  • Israel says it is fighting Hamas in self-defense after October 7, not trying to destroy Palestinians, and that Hamas hides fighters, weapons and tunnels among civilians.
  • Evacuation warnings, humanitarian pauses and aid deliveries, however imperfect, argue against an intent to destroy the population, say critics of the charge such as legal scholar David Bernstein.
  • Harsh words from individual officials aren't government policy, and heavy civilian deaths in urban war are tragic but not genocide by themselves. Israel says the famine finding relied on partial data and that Hamas diverted aid.
  • Some argue the word is being stretched into a political label, which weakens its meaning for future cases.

What Americans think

  • In Quinnipiac's August 2025 poll, 50% of registered voters said Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, including 77% of Democrats, 51% of independents and 20% of Republicans. Six in ten opposed sending Israel more military aid.
  • In Gallup's February 2026 poll, slightly more Americans sympathized with the Palestinians (41%) than with the Israelis (36%), a first in Gallup's trend. Three years earlier it was 54% to 31% the other way. About seven in ten Republicans still sympathized more with the Israelis.
  • The U.S. provided at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel in the war's first two years, according to Brown University's Costs of War project. See money in politics for the role of AIPAC and other groups.

Where to read more

Facts and data: the Congressional Budget Office, KFF on health, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Council on Criminal Justice and TRAC on immigration enforcement.

Think tanks with a point of view (read more than one): the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution (center-left), the American Enterprise Institute and Manhattan Institute (center-right), the Cato Institute (libertarian) and the Prison Policy Initiative (reform advocate).

See also money in politics and billionaire taxes, how to build a balanced news diet and political myths and facts.

Sources

Spotted an error or a newer figure? Write to us at [email protected] and we'll correct it.

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