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Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders clashed vividly over immigration reform, health care and Cuba during a contentious debate Wednesday. ... [Sanders] also showed he could throw a punch, such as when Mrs. Clinton questioned the cost of his Medicare-for-all plan, saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” “What Secretary Clinton is saying is that the United States should continue to be the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all of our people,” Mr. Sanders said, drawing a stern look from his opponent. “I do believe in universal coverage,” she fired back. “Remember, I fought for it 25 years ago.” (Healy and Chozick, 3/9)

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders challenged rival Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on her oft-repeated statement that the Affordable Care Act provided 90% of Americans with health insurance, saying “not really” because of “outrageously high” deductibles and premiums. He said in a primary debate Wednesday night that the American people are “prepared to stand up to the insurance companies and the drug companies.” ... Health policy hasn't been a big issue so far in the primaries. About a quarter of Super Tuesday voters listed healthcare as the top issue for the country. About 19% of Democratic primary voters in Michigan chose healthcare as the most important issue for them. ... Those who said healthcare was their top issue split fairly evenly among the candidates, with 49% voting for Sanders and 48% for Clinton. (Muchmore, 3/9)

Hillary Clinton's embattled status as the Democratic presidential front-runner, dented Tuesday by a surprise defeat in Michigan, faced new challenges Wednesday during a debate with Bernie Sanders that often delved into the vulnerabilities that have complicated her path to the nomination. ... Sanders, too, came in for tough questioning, particularly about a videotaped interview from 1985 in which he pointed out Fidel Castro's work to improve Cuban society, including education and healthcare. “Cuba is, of course, an authoritarian, undemocratic country, and I hope very much as soon as possible it becomes a democratic country,” he said. “But on the other hand, it would be wrong not to state that in Cuba they have made some good advances in healthcare.” (Megerian and Memoli, 3/9)

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton used Wednesday’s Democratic presidential debate to launch sharp attacks on her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, criticizing him as too far left at some points. ... Clinton also criticized Sanders for being too negative about recent Democratic presidents. “Sen. Sanders is always criticizing the two recent Democratic presidents, President Clinton and Persident Obama. And that’s fine. But I wish he would criticize – and join me in criticizing – President George W. Bush,” said Clinton, who is married to another former president, Bill Clinton. She meant that Sanders was wrong to seek to replace “Obamacare” – President Obama’s signature health-care law – with a “single-payer” health-care system. (Fahrenthold, 3/9)

Not every statement could be easily fact-checked, but here are 12 suspicious or interesting claims [from the debate]. ... “It is a record on achievement for veterans … working to achieve the most significant veterans’ health care bill in decades," [Sanders said]. Sanders touts his record as chairman of Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, but he has faced criticism from veterans groups for not paying attention to the health care delays as soon as they were revealed publicly in 2014. But many veteran groups still criticize Sanders for not reacting to the scandal quickly enough. They still point to Sanders’s comments in May 2014: “The point I want to make is that when you are dealing with 200,000 people, if you did better than any other health institution in the world, there would be thousands of people every single day who would say ‘I don’t like what I’m getting.’ And we have to put that all of that in the context of the size of the VA.” (Kessler and Ye Hee Lee, 3/10)