the politics of health care financing makes clear that too few commentators and politicos -- on both sides -- employ evidence to buttress their positions.  Precious little hard facts, numerous statements of dubious validity and, overall, policy preferences mostly explained by the group to which the speaker belong characterize public dialogue on the health system in this country. We deserve better.  We deserve evidence. Healthcare financing is everyone's business and it is definitely something that ought to be widely  debated in the public sphere. But at the same time, it is too big an issue to be decided on weak and partisan rhetoric put forward by groups defending their own interest. This is a topic where strong evidence built from the analysis of decades of international experience is readily available. Now it's time to make that evidence part of the national dialogue. Damien Contandriopolous is an expert advisor with EvidenceNetwork.ca and a professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Montral. License to Republish : Our commentaries and videos are provided under the terms of a CreativeCommons Attribution No-Derivatives license. This license allows for free redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the author and EvidenceNetwork.ca EvidenceNetwork.ca supports the use evidence when reporting on health and health policy in the mainstream media. Specific points of view represented here are the author's and not those of EvidenceNetwork.ca. Let us know how we're doing: evidencenetwork@gmail.com We have experts who