New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his socialist challenger Cynthia Nixon engaged in a televised debate Wednesday night. (Photo: Screen capture/CBS-New York)

(CNSNews.com) - At their contentious debate Wednesday night, Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Socialist candidate Cynthia Nixon disagreed on just about everything, including law and order in their State of New York.

Nixon said if she's elected governor, she would prioritize "things that really make a difference in people’s lives" over law and order.

The debate moderator noted that Cuomo has been criticized for deploying New York State Troopers from upstate to patrol New York City bridges and streets. "Would you continue putting troopers on the streets of New York City?" the moderator asked Nixon.

"Look, we are at a moment where we can't take our safety for granted," Nixon replied, "but yes, I think that we have better places to be spending our state revenue than a proliferation of state troopers."

Nixon called for greater investments in education, "human service jobs" and infrastructure.

Nixon went off on a tangent, so the moderator tried again, asking her: "When it comes to the troopers, would you send them back upstate to protect communities that feel unprotected as a result of this? Are they duplicative in New York City?" he asked Nixon.

"I think that we need to, as a state and as a society, be making less investment in law and order and more investment in things that really make a difference in people's lives, like education and like housing and health care," Nixon responded.

(Cuomo said he redeployed state troopers mainly to catch people who cheat at cashless toll locations. "Government agencies were afraid of losing resources," he said.)

On the topic of health care, Nixon favors Medicare for all, with no copays or deductibles, as a "human right."

But that would cost the state $139 billion, almost the size of the state budget. "How do you plan to make this happen?" the moderator asked Nixon.

Nixon, pointing to the same Rand Corporation study used by the moderator, responded:

"So the Rand Corporation also said that it would be tremendous savings for New York State. We can insure all of our people here, by a single payer for all system. We can do it better, we can do it cheaper, we can do it with no copays, with no deductibles, and 98 percent of New Yorkers would pay less for their health care than they do now."

The moderator noted that the same Rand study found that paying for such a system "would nearly triple the state tax rate for an average family, from nearly 6 percent to 18 percent.

Nixon said right now, a family making $49,000 is paying $17,500 for health care.

"What we would have is a payroll tax in order to pay for it. It would be taken out of people's payrolls the same way Social Security is taken out. It would be an overall savings for 98 percent of New Yorkers, and it would be an enormous savings for employers here. It is seen that it could create 200,000 jobs because employers would no longer be responsible for providing health care for their employees. It would drive medical costs and pharmaceutical costs down 40 percent.

"We have a million uninsured New Yorkers in this state, but we have millions more who are underinsured, who are one diagnosis, who one accident away from bankruptcy. This is the end of change that New Yorkers really care about. This is the kind of change that our Democratic Party should be embracing in order to address the incredible inequality here. Health care is a human right. We can insure all of our people, and we can do it at enormous savings, not only to individuals and to employers, but to the state itself."

Cuomo agreed that "in theory," single-payer is the desirable solution, but he said the projected cost for the transition to single-payer is more than the entire state budget. "Where do you get the $200 million short term, which would double the tax burden and take money from everything else to get to single payer?" he asked.

Cuomo noted that no state has done it successfully. "It is the right idea. It should be explored. It is hard to do. The real thing we need to do is have a president of the United States who understands that health care is not a luxury, it is a human right."